Partition sizes [Solved]

[Sleepy]

I've had trouble in the past understanding partition sizes.So when the final 2010 iso is released I'd like to get the install done correctly for a change.
Could someone put me right with regards to how large the required swap / and /home partitions should be assuming I have around 30gb hdd space spare?

[Old-Polack]

I've had trouble in the past understanding partition sizes.So when the final 2010 iso is released I'd like to get the install done correctly for a change.
Could someone put me right with regards to how large the required swap / and /home partitions should be assuming I have around 30gb hdd space spare?

A lot depends on how you use your computer. If all I had was 30 GB, I'd create a swap and a / partition. Swap again depends on what you do. Lots of graphic work, lot's of swap. Spend most of your time web surfing, minimum swap. How much physical RAM do you have? Is your computer a desktop or laptop? Will you hibernate, if it's a laptop? I'd want twice the physical RAM as swap, in that case. Lots of variables with just that one item.

[Sleepy]

I've had trouble in the past understanding partition sizes.So when the final 2010 iso is released I'd like to get the install done correctly for a change.
Could someone put me right with regards to how large the required swap / and /home partitions should be assuming I have around 30gb hdd space spare?

A lot depends on how you use your computer. If all I had was 30 GB, I'd create a swap and a / partition. Swap again depends on what you do. Lots of graphic work, lot's of swap. Spend most of your time web surfing, minimum swap. How much physical RAM do you have? Is your computer a desktop or laptop? Will you hibernate, if it's a laptop? I'd want twice the physical RAM as swap, in that case. Lots of variables with just that one item.

Thanks for the fast response OP.
Do I take it from that,I wouldn't need a /home partition?
I have a desktop with 2gb ram and to be honest don't do lots of graphic work and wont hibernate.

[Old-Polack]

I've had trouble in the past understanding partition sizes.So when the final 2010 iso is released I'd like to get the install done correctly for a change.
Could someone put me right with regards to how large the required swap / and /home partitions should be assuming I have around 30gb hdd space spare?

A lot depends on how you use your computer. If all I had was 30 GB, I'd create a swap and a / partition. Swap again depends on what you do. Lots of graphic work, lot's of swap. Spend most of your time web surfing, minimum swap. How much physical RAM do you have? Is your computer a desktop or laptop? Will you hibernate, if it's a laptop? I'd want twice the physical RAM as swap, in that case. Lots of variables with just that one item.

Thanks for the fast response OP.
Do I take it from that,I wouldn't need a /home partition?
I have a desktop with 2gb ram and to be honest don't do lots of graphic work

In that case I'd go with 2 GB swap and the rest /.  The problem is that you need space in different areas at different times. However you split the / partition, one part will be too big, and one too small, at different times. With just a large / the space is used dynamically with less chance of a lock up. If you start using the machine in a different manner, and load the /home directory with d/ls and such, you would still be susceptible to lock up once the partition becomes full.

The only disadvantage of having /home be part of / is if you reinstall, you overwrite /home as well. If you have an external drive that can hold a backup of your /home/<you> directory, that's not a big deal. 

[Sleepy]

I've had trouble in the past understanding partition sizes.So when the final 2010 iso is released I'd like to get the install done correctly for a change.
Could someone put me right with regards to how large the required swap / and /home partitions should be assuming I have around 30gb hdd space spare?

A lot depends on how you use your computer. If all I had was 30 GB, I'd create a swap and a / partition. Swap again depends on what you do. Lots of graphic work, lot's of swap. Spend most of your time web surfing, minimum swap. How much physical RAM do you have? Is your computer a desktop or laptop? Will you hibernate, if it's a laptop? I'd want twice the physical RAM as swap, in that case. Lots of variables with just that one item.

Thanks for the fast response OP.
Do I take it from that,I wouldn't need a /home partition?
I have a desktop with 2gb ram and to be honest don't do lots of graphic work

In that case I'd go with 2 GB swap and the rest /.  The problem is that you need space in different areas at different times. However you split the / partition, one part will be too big, and one too small, at different times. With just a large / the space is used dynamically with less chance of a lock up. If you start using the machine in a different manner, and load the /home directory with d/ls and such, you would still be susceptible to lock up once the partition becomes full.

The only disadvantage of having /home be part of / is if you reinstall, you overwrite /home as well. If you have an external drive that can hold a backup of your /home/<you> directory, that's not a big deal. 

That's a fine explanation and one that I can understand so I'll go with that when the time comes.
I have been running Gnome in a similar situation for months and it has given me no problems but I shall take the advice and backup the /home to my external drive.

Thanks and much obliged to you OP.

[Old-Polack]

More than welcome.

How about you add a [Solved] the the first post of this thread, to let people know you got a satisfactory answer to your question. It will help others when searching for a similar solution.

[NLite]

Maybe, I can add a question:

I have a bigger harddrive, 160G, and would like an extra home partition. What is the recommended size for system and swap? Allowing for different usages, maybe you could give a range of min/max?

[Old-Polack]

Maybe, I can add a question:

I have a bigger harddrive, 160G, and would like an extra home partition. What is the recommended size for system and swap? Allowing for different usages, maybe you could give a range of min/max?

Same answer as before, depends on what you do with the system. I have / partitions as small as 12 GB and as large as 85 GB. Different systems used in different ways. I have a couple of /home partitions, for two installations, but mostly they are a waste of space. All my data is in other separate partitions where it can be accessed from any installed OS in the same relative place.

I have swap partitions on each drive, so they can be run independently. Each was twice the size of physical RAM at the time of installation. With 2 swaps active at the moment I get this from top;

Swap: 14313896k total,    11648k used, 14302248k free,  1469188k cached

On a drive similar to yours;

[root@littleboy ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 164.7 GB, 164696555520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd7523ebd

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1          13      104391   83  Linux                               <-- boot partition
/dev/sdb2              14         257     1959930   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3             258        1778    12217432+  83  Linux                        <-- / partition PCLOS full
/dev/sdb4            1779       20023   146552962+   5  Extended
/dev/sdb5            1779        7860    48853633+  83  Linux                       <-- /home partition for above
/dev/sdb6            7861       14000    49319518+  83  Linux                      <-- data partition
/dev/sdb7           14001       20023    48379716   83  Linux                        <-- / partition MiniMe

[Village Idiot]

I wanted to offer you the choice of having a dynamic swap arrangement if space is a premium. It is possible, as long as your are careful, to have no swap partition and if need be add one to the root directory in the form of a swap file when you anticipate heavy usage. Takes some time to set up but is seems that if your 2 gig of memory is matched with say 2 gig swap) seems like a lot of space (6%+ of your drive) to have only for occasional use. 2 gigs of ram is already alot on it's own. For most users anyway.. jmo

But if your getting a 160gb drive then my post is moot. 

[NLite]

Thanks, old-polack, that gives me an idea.

I only ever use one one os (ya know which one), have a laptop (don't hibernate) with 1G RAM. I don't do much graphics.

12G for system partition should be enough.
(100Mb if I really want a boot partition)
2G for SWAP would be ample.

And how I pack up my data, is up to me entirely.