5720 and Linux n00b - Page 2

4GB swaP???? Why so large?? You really don't need any more then 1 gig for swap. I build servers with less swap then 4 gig. For a workstation its a waste of space. I would set up something like the following:
Partition 1: / somewhare between 5-10 gig.
Partition 2: /swap 1Gig
Partition 3: /home the rest of the drive

For root or / you won't be needing a huge amount of space. This is where all your system files and programs are stored. There is also things like log files and all the library files (dll's in windows). No personal data is stored here, so Id say if you can spare it, make it no more than 10 Gig and no less then 5gig.
Swap we already disscussed. There isn't any need for anything over 1 gig on a workstation/desktop.
/home is where all personal data is kept. All documents, games, mp3, and anything else. This is a partition that needs to be as big as you can. Also, by keeping /home seperate, when you do an upgrade it won't be formated.

Here is my present laptop layout. I dual boot but never use the windows partiton. The only reason I even have it is because my modem isn't supported. When I'm on the road and i need to use a modem connection I boot windows.
Partition 1; Winxp 8 Gig w/5.3 gig used(ntfs)
Partition 2: / root 8 gig w/3.3 gig used(ext3)
Partition 3: /swap 1 gig (swap)
Partition 4: /home 56 gig. w/13 gig used(ext3)

This setup works great. My system specs are below and I very rarely even use any swap. Only when Playing Half-life 2 or Quake 4. Even then its minimal and around 100MB.

Take a look at the How to on my site it will get you going in no time.
http://www.linuxloader.com/modules.p...howpage&pid=28

PDR60

dont do partitioning on day one and install on day 2.....the linux instlaler on the livecd has a partitioning tool which is powerful enough to do that as you install. just get clicking. you'll have a native ubuntu install within 20 minutes.

you have a 100gb drive right?

windows -- 40
swap -- 4
fat32 shared -- 36
linux --20

EDIT:
he brings up a good idea to split the / and the /home......

why 4gb swap..... he has 2 gig of ram and if you read some wikis many recommend to have at least as much, if not double the swap compared to the amount of ram. SO like i have a gig of ram so i keep my swap @ 2gb.... This has something to do with the way suspend2 loads stuff that you'll need the extra large swap.

/home is where the documents and files of all the users are stored. think of it as the "my documents" folder...except for its a bit more than that. it also saves the config files there to all your installed programs (for example the firefox profiles are stored in /home/username/.mozilla). / (root) is the base directory which includes everything else. To separate them has 1 big advantage as to if you're going to install a different distro, or if your distro breaks...your files are still gonna be safe b/c most installers allow you to "save the /home" which will not overwrite those files so when the install finishes all your stuff is still there.

i really dont see the point of using ext3 anymore... reiserfs v3 is very stable and faster than ext3...so i'd just use that.

if you're gonna go fresh like that even reinstalling windows then this is the steps:

1. Boot livecd fire up "cfdisk" in terminal and create your partitions (dont asign filesystem to them yet, just make it general (make sure your shared partition is fat32)....save and write to disk. shut down

2. Boot with windows installer and install to the partition you created to be your windows, have the windows installer format it to ntfs, carry on the process as normal.

3. Boot the ubuntu livecd and hit the installer. follow instructions to configure the rest (/root /home swap). you should be good to go then.

Ext3 vs ReiserFS is a discussion that really requires more knowledge of FS internals than most of us have ABF

At any rate Ext3 still is better supported cross platform than reiser, and for many people it is easier, and you dont really notice a difference at all in most computing tasks. Very few times do you have to worry about what FS, and most of those arent done on a laptop

The point does still stand about the size of your swap, that does seem large, even to me.

Seablade

i am just saying what i read. most distros recommend setting the swap to AT LEAST the amount of ram (swap = ram) some say 1.5x and some as much as 2x just to be safe with suspending to disk (suspend2disk puts file into swap as far as i can remember). So perhaps he doesn't need 4gb swap, but at least 2gb for sure.

prolly not. just go ahead and make /home and /root the same thing....just 1 complete linux partition. make things easy on yourself.

ps,,,getting totally mad errors in msn...you got aol or something?

before you do anything install automatix

www.getautomatix.com it will get you started on most things. its a script that will automatically install and configure certain applications and packages with just a few clicks of a mouse rather quickly and painlessly

Never using suspend to disk I cant comment on that, I can comment that I have never needed a swap to that size, and that calculation itself is actually left over from the days when 32 MB of Ram was large.

Seablade