Good partition sizes for Linux?

[Threepwood]

What would be some recommended partition sizes?

e.g My system has 512mb RAM and AFAIK, it's usual to use 512mb-1gb for the swap for that amount? (Would I be better off with 1gb?)

Also for my root partition? For WinXP about 16GB works well for me, it's enough for all my usual apps etc with plenty left over. All games and such get kept elsewhere.

Any general info or tips for Linux partitions?

 

[.Froot.]

What I have always done is the following (for one physical drive though):
1: 15-20GB root partition
2. swap partition (I have 2GB for 2GB RAM). 1GB for 512MB is fine.
3. /home partition. Whatever size you can spare
4. Windows partition (if you want one) 15-20GB for XP, 30-50GB for Vista (depends on software/games, etc)

 

[milomak]

Yeah I typically set my root partitions to be between 15GB and 20GB. Never filled it up.

I then have separate data folders to download stuff and install stuff from source.

 

[.Froot.]

I download everything into a folder in my home directory but I use the standard .deb files for apps in Ubuntu.
I installed openSUSE on another computer yesterday so will see how it goes there though.

 

[slayerza]

Here is my setup

swap - size of RAM
/ - 20GB per distro
/home - 120GB HDD

Some other hard drives are used for windows, and windows readable file systems. Typically my XP partitions is 30GB with games and other huge apps going onto another partition.

 

[Threepwood]

Is it a huge thing to not put /home on a seperate partition?

Honestly I don't even really know what /home is but I assume it's like documents and settings or something?

Do apps and such generally install to /home?

Anyway I think as my Linux experience is < I will not put /home on a seperate partition for now, I need to just get used to it first so I'm sure ~20GB will let me play around all right.

 

[slayerza]

/home is akin to the documents and settings folders in windows and contain user data (files, pics etc.) and program settings. In general applications do not install to /home. The main motivation for having /home on a separate partition / drive is data security, it is by no means a must. AFAIK the default installs do not do this.

 

[milomak]

Having home on a separate partition has the advantage that should you reinstall or choose a new version, settings for the various apps remain.

Note: it is generally not encouraged to use application settings from a different distro on another (eg Ubuntu settings on Fedora distro). However in practice I have found there to be no issues. But of course if you do it, be prepared for something.

 

[Nod]

The only reason to have your /home on a separate partition, is to prevent your system from hanging if you fill up the partition. If it is separate from the root (/) partition, the system is still usable if /home fills up.

 

[.Froot.]

You can't completely fill your hard drive... there is a 5% buffer limit that is set when you install.

 

[Threepwood]

I'm setting up a system just for very basic usage, will about 500mb be enough for /home? I'll have about 8gb for / and the rest of the 40gb drive for storage of largish files on other partitions.

 

[.Froot.]

I'm setting up a system just for very basic usage, will about 500mb be enough for /home? I'll have about 8gb for / and the rest of the 40gb drive for storage of largish files on other partitions.

Can you afford 1GB for /home? Remember that all your personal files (such as evolution emails for instance and settings for all your programs) are in there...

 

[Threepwood]

I can probably, but I don't know if I'll need it, better safe than sorry I suppose.

Actually probably all I'm going to do with this box is run a torrent client, so I can't see it requiring much.

 

[.Froot.]

I can probably, but I don't know if I'll need it, better safe than sorry I suppose.

Actually probably all I'm going to do with this box is run a torrent client, so I can't see it requiring much.

Then 500MB should suffice, as long as you don't install too many other apps. Enjoy...

 

[Threepwood]

I think I did overkill on the swap.

I made a 1gb swap partition on this system with 384mb ram, at present it's running file manager, synaptic package manager, system monitor and firefox and I'm only using ~30mg of swap. Looks like I could have halved the swap size easily.