Arch Linux

whitetimer

Member

Registered: 2010-05-23

Posts: 207

Partitioning HDD

Hi All

Well i have a clean partition ready to install arch linux, but i would like some advice on sizing the partitions ... I have a 180 gb partition and 4gb ram ...

/
/boot
/swap
/home

Many Thanks

Thor@Flanders

Member

Registered: 2010-08-27

Posts: 266

Re: Partitioning HDD

Hi,

I stuck tot he proposed defaults, and...well, I'd advice you to "stretch" the file system partition a bit...
Here's my setup

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev                   10M  196K  9.9M   2% /dev
/dev/disk/(the root system)
                      7.3G  5.3G  1.7G  77% /
shm                   752M   76K  751M   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda4             222G   24G  187G  12% /home
/dev/sda1              99M   14M   80M  15% /boot

I marked the section where it says "root system" - noticed the 1.7 Gb free space? Okay, it works, but it is (for me) a bit on the skinny side...

Strick to the defaults for the rest, but do double (if possible) on the root...

Hope the install meets your needs

Wellness

Thor

kachelaqa

Member

Registered: 2010-09-26

Posts: 216

Re: Partitioning HDD

i would like some advice on sizing the partitions ... I have a 180 gb partition and 4gb ram ...

100mb for boot
10gb for root
the rest for home

with 4gb ram, a swap partition is redundant.

whitetimer

Member

Registered: 2010-05-23

Posts: 207

Re: Partitioning HDD

Many thanks to all ....

here goes )

roelove

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2010-10-21

Posts: 10

Re: Partitioning HDD

What filesystems are you using?

@kachelaqa, I got adviced to use 2x ram as swap memory, even though I have 4gb. May I ask you why it is redundant? Isn't it useful for hibernation for example.

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Windows xp -> windows 7 -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Arch x64 (AwesomeWM) + Windows 7 x64

ChoK

Member

From: France

Registered: 2008-10-01

Posts: 346

Re: Partitioning HDD

You can also use a separate partition for /var so the logs' files and pacman's cache doesn't use up your whole root partition.

so my base system is partitioned this way.
/ 1G (contains all config files, can be backed up easily
/boot 100M
/usr 8G (even if I lose this partition, there is nothing special in there, everything is manage  by pacman)
/var 3,6G (pacman cache, and svn use the most space in there)

the rest in /home.

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Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.
Picasso
Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.
Saint Exupéry

jdarnold

Member

From: Medford MA USA

Registered: 2009-12-15

Posts: 485

Website

Re: Partitioning HDD

With 4gb of RAM you'll probably almost never actually use Swap.  The "2x size of memory" recommendation came back in the days of low memory. Of course, hard disk space is usually limitless too, so the difference between 1gb & 4gb swap space has a neglible effect on even a smallish drive of 180gb like this, never mind the 1TB+ beasts you can pick up for US$50 these days.

Not sure if it is used for hibernation though.

kachelaqa

Member

Registered: 2010-09-26

Posts: 216

Re: Partitioning HDD

@kachelaqa, I got adviced to use 2x ram as swap memory, even though I have 4gb. May I ask you why it is redundant? Isn't it useful for hibernation for example.

i probably should have qualified that with "unless you have special requirements".

(and if you have to ask what those special requirements are, you probably don't have them).

i have been using 4gb ram (3.2gb available) with no swap for many years without any ill-effects, and i know many other people do the same.

i have never used hibernation, but i think it is possible to set it up with a swap file rather than a partition.

hard disk space is usually limitless too, so the difference between 1gb & 4gb swap space has a neglible effect

on my system with 4gb ram and 500gb hard-drive, "2x ram" would mean 8gb (about 1.5 percent) of wasted disk space.

not a huge amount, but it would still bother me.

much more bothersome is wasting a partition - with SATA, it is not possible to have more than 15 partitions.

Last edited by kachelaqa (2010-10-21 17:14:12)

roelove

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2010-10-21

Posts: 10

Re: Partitioning HDD

clears up a lot, thanks.

I didn't knew that and just made a 8gb swap partition back then because I was rather sure then sorry and I could miss the discspace.

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Windows xp -> windows 7 -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Arch x64 (AwesomeWM) + Windows 7 x64