Harddrive and Partiton

[chucksaysword2]

I've been itching to try out Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo for the longest time. Only problem is that my current harddrive (11 GB) is a bit too small. I'm looking to upgrade to a 40 or 60 GB harddrive. I'm eyeballing either a Maxtor or Seagate 7200 RPM drive. Has anyone used one of these drives before or a similar one from another manufacturer? If so, any problems or concerns? Any reccomendations?


I'd also like to do some unsual stuff with partitioning. I'd like to set up a /schoolwork partition (like /dev/hdb4) and have it read/write/executable by every distribution on my computer. That is possible, correct? Also, is it possible for every distro to use the same swap partition?

Thanks in advance to anyone and everyone with any hints, suggestions, comments, or otherwise.

[mdwatts]

Maxtor and Seagates are good choices.

Yes you can create any 'extra' partitions as you please and have every distro mount the partition through /etc/fstab.

/dev/hda10 /shared ext3 auto,users,rw 0 0

And you can share the swap partition between distros.

[chucksaysword2]

Would I be correct in stating that it would be a bad idea to share other partitions between distros (/home, /usr/local, /var/logs, etc.)?

[mdwatts]

Some do share /home though I do not since I find there are too many differences in the user configs.

I only share swap.

[chucksaysword2]

Thanks mdwatts! (I'm surprised you didn't tell me to do a Google search :D. Just Kidding!)

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by chucksaysword2
Thanks mdwatts! (I'm surprised you didn't tell me to do a Google search :D. Just Kidding!)

Some questions are easier solved by just posting the answer in the thread while some you can find with a SIMPLE G4L search.

www.google.com/linux (bookmark me !!)

:D

[chucksaysword2]

OK I plan on picking up a Seagate 40GB from my local computer shop tomorrow afternoon. I plan to partition it like so:

40GB (/dev/hdb)

-9GB RedHat 8.0 (extended partition)
7GB ext3 / (/dev/hdb1)
1.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb2)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb3)

-9GB SlackWare 9.0 (extended partition)
7GB ext3 / (/dev/hdb4)
1.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb5)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb6)

-9GB Debian (extended partition)
7GB ext3 / (/dev/hbd7)
1.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb8)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb9)

-9GB Gentoo/Caldera/FreeBSD/Empty (extended partition)
7GB ext3 / (/dev/hdb10)
1.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb11)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb12)

-3.5 GB Schoolwork (shared) (primary partition)
3.5GB ext3 /schoolwork (/dev/hdb13)

-.5GB Swap (shared) (primary partition)
.5GB swap (/dev/hdb14)



I plan on installing the distros in the order they appear. Should I partition before hand, or use the RedHat program during install? Also, should I install GRUB during the RH install and then modify it each time I add a distro? Or should I wait until I install the last distro to install a bootloader?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[LinuxLuke]

uhhh, you REALLY don't need that much for / well maybe for Debian, with it's 7 CDs of crud... but 1.9GB for home is a little lacking... if you have a decent internet connection and download much, that'll full up fast... on this XP maching I had over 2 gigs in my documents... and I'm on dial up

[InferiorWang]

On mine with only 1 linux and windows xp i gave xp 5 gigs, linux 5 gigs, 1 gig swap, and 45 gigs for my music and movies and crap.

[chucksaysword2]

I am on a broadband connection but I do not download much besides programs. I've taken some of your suggestions and did a little rearranging. My new partition plans.

40GB (/dev/hdb)

-9GB RedHat 8.0 (extended partition)
5GB ext3 / (/dev/hdb1)
3.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb2)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb3)

-9GB SlackWare 9.0 (extended partition)
5GB ext3 / (/dev/hdb4)
3.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb5)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb6)

-9GB Debian (extended partition)
5GB ext3 / (/dev/hbd7)
3.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb8)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb9)

-9GB Gentoo/Caldera/FreeBSD/Empty (extended partition)
5GB ext3 / (/dev/hdb10)
3.9GB ext3 /home (/dev/hdb11)
100MB ext3 /boot (/dev/hdb12)

-1.5 GB Schoolwork (shared) (primary partition)
1.5GB ext3 /schoolwork (/dev/hdb13)

-2GB Music (shared) (primary partition)
2GB ext3 /music (/dev/hdb14)

-.5GB Swap (shared) (primary partition)
.5GB swap (/dev/hdb15)

[InferiorWang]

I don't know how much music you download but you might want to allocate a little more space in ur music directory. You may never need more space than that, but I have over 6 gigs of music. It only takes about 600 mp3s to fill 2 gigs.

[chucksaysword2]

600 mp3's?? C'mon now I use Ogg. But you're probably rite. Now what I'm really concerned with is whether or not to use fdisk to manually partition or use RH's tool. Also, should I install Grub with RH and then modify grub.conf to load the other distros as I install? I've never done a triple or quadruple boot before so I'm a little worried.

[InferiorWang]

600 songs * a little over 3 minutes * a little over a meg a minute = 2 gigs.