Arch Linux

AlexC_

Member

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 14

Partition Layout for 2 Arch installs

Morning all,

I've currently got Arch with GNOME installed on /dev/sdb with partitions taking up all the space of that hard drive. However I am wanting to have another Arch install that will run the latest KDE /trunk that will become 4.2, and so I'm wondering what would be the best way to layout my partitions. Here is my current partition layout for /dev/sdb (could someone also explain why the size of the partitions is quite odd? I didn't specify those exact values, it would have been like 128mb or 1gb for example):

/dev/sdb1: /boot (ext3, 125.48mb)
/dev/sdb2: swap (linux-swap, 972.69mb)
/dev/sdb3: / (ext3, 83.82gb)
/dev/sdb4: /var (reiserfs, 26.90gb)

No personal data (eg, Music, Pictures etc) are stored on either of these partitions, as I have another hard drive (oh I love to keep things separated =3) with all of those on, so it doesn't really matter about making it easy to share things between the 2 installs.

So, will I have to create another boot and swap partition for this new install? I'm guessing not, though not sure if that will cause issues. From what I can remember, I will have to create extended and logical partitions as I already have 4.

If someone could point me in the correct direction on how to set this up, would be greatly appreciated

Regards,

qdiesel

Member

Registered: 2008-05-19

Posts: 61

Re: Partition Layout for 2 Arch installs

why do you think you should have separate arch install for kde?
i suggest you to make use of different runlevels for kde and gnome.

AlexC_

Member

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 14

Re: Partition Layout for 2 Arch installs

Because I'm not a fan of having both KDE and GNOME installed on the same system. Sure it causes no problems and will run just fine, just not for me. Plus I'll most likely have this other install as a test/playground install where I don't care if it goes fubar.

takedown

Member

From: Argentina

Registered: 2008-08-31

Posts: 219

Re: Partition Layout for 2 Arch installs

really feel a need to make 2 installations? I find it unnecessary
but I respect your opinion

chilebiker

Member

From: Zurich, Switzerland

Registered: 2006-07-18

Posts: 161

Re: Partition Layout for 2 Arch installs

I have two Arch installs on the same machine: One is for the family (Xfce), which also serves as my backup system, the second one is my workbench and playground (Openbox). I have the following layout:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             9.3G  4.2G  4.7G  48% /               # 2nd Arch for me
none                     252M     0  252M   0% /dev/shm   # swap
/dev/sda6             9.2G  6.2G  2.6G  72% /home       # home
/dev/sda2             9.3G  2.3G  6.6G  26% /mnt/sda2  # 1st Arch for family

I use two different usernames on both systems, but symlinking email/browser directories from 1st to 2nd.

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Don't panic!