contemplating moving to linux

anti-destin · 2009-02-14 07:46:06

i'm strongly considering moving over to linux completely, mainly because i want to get away from windows and because i'm looking for something new and interesting. for the past few weeks, i've been trying out various distros, but none has impressed me as much as arch, which seems to be the fastest and lightest one i've tried. still, a number of issues, more conceptual than technical, are keeping me from making the switch.

1. i686 vs. x86_64? i have a core 2 duo t5450. is there a reason not to use x86_64? i was unable to get it to work in virtualbox (cpu not detected as 64-bit), so i couldn't test it.

2. minimalism. i've nlited my xp installation iso down to 150mb by removing unused programs, components, and files. the windows directory is 467mb. can i get arch linux down to this size? i try to use the smallest installations possible, but it always seems like the fully installed system is far larger than xp.

3. light programs. on xp, i prefer to use portable applications, simply because they're cleaner (they don't add files all over the place) and often lighter. k-meleon, e.g., is around 8mb and fully self-contained in its directory. miranda is around 6mb. i like how the programs are separated from the rest of the system.

now, based on my experience, it doesn't look like this is possible on linux. first, applications don't seem to be self-contained in this way (i.e., files go all over the place). second, it looks like a whole lot is installed for each application. pcmanfm, e.g., required over 100mb of space. why are these packages so large? am i doing something wrong?

4. my objective is to recreate my xp system. here's a screenshot: http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6729 … hotjd7.png

i suppose the bare minimum i'd need would be:
-wireless
-bluetooth (mouse)
-openbox
-multi-protocol im (pidgin light?)
-light browser (midori?)
-light music and video players

i think i have a good idea of the direction i'd like to take, at least for these, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks.

Ranguvar · 2009-02-14 07:51:59

No offense, but most of the stuff in this post has been discussed to death. Real quick:

64-bit: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 99#p452499
Minimalism: The core packages can be slimmed some, but not too much. I wouldn't worry about it - it's not bloat I am a fan of minimalism too.
Light programs: There are many threads on this, etc... for IM, I'd go with bitlbee and your IRC client. For a light video player, MPlayer.

Enjoy!

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-02-14 07:52:07)

Honken · 2009-02-14 09:04:29

Well, for a window manager I guess the most minimal choice would be DWM. It's a single binary and it's only a few kb big, but it is still very functional. See suckless.org for more info.

There is a wiki article on light applications:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lig … t_Software

There's also the common applications list which list quite many light software:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Common_Apps

I guess the LnF awards topic is worth mentioning as well:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=41168

tomk · 2009-02-14 09:59:53

If you're really stuck on the self-contained-app thing, have a look at gobolinux.org - that's their main selling point.

Runiq · 2009-02-14 10:06:40

There is still GoboLinux, which makes apps remain in a single directory, each in its own. I don't use it, though, so can't make any further comments on minimalism or anything else. (edit: Too late. ^^)

On the minimalism thing: It's hard to find linux apps that are "self-contained", they mostly depend on each other. A Linux system is more like a patchwork system of sorts (at least that's what I have always imagined it to be ). It might not always look beautiful, but it works surprisingly well. In addition to that, the need for self-contained apps is usually eliminated as soon as you have decent package management (Yes, pacman, I'm looking at you). Say, if you install pcmanfm, pacman also installs all the libraries it depends on. But, since libraries are shared, when you install another program that needs exactly those libraries, they won't be installed again.

Apart from that, we have a plethora of lightweight apps - see wiki article above. (Many lightweight apps involve the use of the command line, btw). For lightweight IMing, I'd recommend either centerim or mcabber (with transports, as you seem to use msn). There ain't a thing that can beat MPD when it comes to playing music. Mplayer is a jack-of-all-trades for videos.

You can use x86_64 pretty well, though there are still issues with it. Some apps only have i686 binaries, and for these you'll have to install 32-bit libraries (arch isn't a multilib system by default).

[OT]On a sidenote, how in the world did you get your XP to look like THAT? Awesome, man. I wish mine'd look like that. XD[/OT]

Last edited by Runiq (2009-02-14 10:09:20)

R00KIE · 2009-02-14 15:34:10

Short answers
1) No reason why you shouldn't use x86_64, virtual machines are a different story, just try to boot Arch64
2) You will not be able to get Arch to use just 150MB but don't worry you will be able to get Arch with everything and the rest packing more punch that vista and still using less than half the space ... the path is forward
3) On linux apps don't add files all over the place, you install the files go into /usr/bin or /opt/ and the configuration of every program is specific to every user and stays on its home directory (if the user used the program), much easier to handle than with windoze ... just don't get "smart" and install stuff using other methods than with pacman.
4) I'm sure you can get it that way ... there is a big range of choices in the linux camp ... sometimes the hard task is choosing

skottish · 2009-02-14 16:09:41

R00KIE wrote:

2) You will not be able to get Arch to use just 150MB but don't worry you will be able to get Arch with everything and the rest packing more punch that vista and still using less than half the space ... the path is forward

It depends on if we're talking about running a Linux system or when working with a bunch of stuff. Without Firefox open, my system is reporting 116MB of reserved RAM right now with things like MPD, privoxy, avahi, smbnetfs, and the nVidia driver running. This is normal.

Mr.Elendig · 2009-02-14 16:38:38

XP is 8 years old now. A lot have happened in 8 years. No, you probably won't be able to get arch in as little disc space as XP without a lot of work. Specially since arch isn't optimized for disc space to begin with. Eg we don't split out -devel stuff.

anti-destin · 2009-02-14 18:36:38

Ranguvar wrote:

No offense, but most of the stuff in this post has been discussed to death. Real quick:
64-bit: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 99#p452499
Minimalism: The core packages can be slimmed some, but not too much. I wouldn't worry about it - it's not bloat I am a fan of minimalism too.
Light programs: There are many threads on this, etc... for IM, I'd go with bitlbee and your IRC client. For a light video player, MPlayer.
Enjoy!

i realize that and i read through a lot of the discussion, but i was hoping for some simple, focused answers. e.g., regarding 64-bit, i had read about possible incompatibilities.

Honken wrote:

Well, for a window manager I guess the most minimal choice would be DWM. It's a single binary and it's only a few kb big, but it is still very functional. See suckless.org for more info.
There is a wiki article on light applications:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lig … t_Software
There's also the common applications list which list quite many light software:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Common_Apps
I guess the LnF awards topic is worth mentioning as well:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=41168

thanks for the links. i had read through those earlier, but i had not heard of dwm. i'll check it out.

tomk wrote:

If you're really stuck on the self-contained-app thing, have a look at gobolinux.org - that's their main selling point.

i wouldn't say i'm stuck on it, as i'd rather have a sprightly system than a barren one, but i value organizational simplicity.

i hadn't heard of gobolinux, but it looks very interesting. i'm trying it out right now.

Runiq wrote:

There is still GoboLinux, which makes apps remain in a single directory, each in its own. I don't use it, though, so can't make any further comments on minimalism or anything else. (edit: Too late. ^^)
On the minimalism thing: It's hard to find linux apps that are "self-contained", they mostly depend on each other. A Linux system is more like a patchwork system of sorts (at least that's what I have always imagined it to be ). It might not always look beautiful, but it works surprisingly well. In addition to that, the need for self-contained apps is usually eliminated as soon as you have decent package management (Yes, pacman, I'm looking at you). Say, if you install pcmanfm, pacman also installs all the libraries it depends on. But, since libraries are shared, when you install another program that needs exactly those libraries, they won't be installed again.
Apart from that, we have a plethora of lightweight apps - see wiki article above. (Many lightweight apps involve the use of the command line, btw). For lightweight IMing, I'd recommend either centerim or mcabber (with transports, as you seem to use msn). There ain't a thing that can beat MPD when it comes to playing music. Mplayer is a jack-of-all-trades for videos.
You can use x86_64 pretty well, though there are still issues with it. Some apps only have i686 binaries, and for these you'll have to install 32-bit libraries (arch isn't a multilib system by default).
[OT]On a sidenote, how in the world did you get your XP to look like THAT? Awesome, man. I wish mine'd look like that. XD[/OT]

one of the problems i have is finding files. e.g., whenever i install a program, it's not clear where the files go. sometimes they go into usr/bin sometimes into usr/local/bin, etc. and then i have no idea where the other files (e.g., dependencies) go. one thing i don't like about windows is that installations often involve files, usually dll files, getting thrown all over the place, into the program files directory, into system32, etc. i'm not sure how much transparency or control i can have with file installations on linux. that's why i was asking.

as for my xp system, it took me several years of learning how to modify system files to get it to look like that. here's a better shot: http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7508 … hotke3.png

some notes:
-bblean as my shell with my own theme
-miranda as the chat program, my own icons
-my own visual style
-run box, open/save dialog, shutdown dialog, copy dialog, etc. all reshacked. in particular, i reshacked appwiz.cpl, batmeter.dll, browselc.dll, comctl32.dll, comdlg32.dll, desk.cpl, explorer.exe, hdwwiz.cpl, inetcpl.cpl, intl.cpl, main.cpl, mmsys.cpl, moricons.dll, msgina.dll, mstask.dll, ncpa.dll, netshell.dll, nusrmgr.cpl, powercfg.cpl, shell32.dll, shimgvw.dll, stobject.dll, sysdm.cpl, timedate.cpl, wiashext.dll, wscui.cpl, wuaucpl.cpl, xpsp2res.dll.

is it possible to do the same on linux? when i say minimalism, i mean minimalism!

R00KIE wrote:

Short answers
1) No reason why you shouldn't use x86_64, virtual machines are a different story, just try to boot Arch64

i'll definitely try it.

2) You will not be able to get Arch to use just 150MB but don't worry you will be able to get Arch with everything and the rest packing more punch that vista and still using less than half the space ... the path is forward

well, to be precise, 150mb is the size of the iso. 467mb is the size of my windows directory. still, i don't mind if linux is a little larger as long as it's cleaner, stabler, and faster.

Mr.Elendig wrote:

XP is 8 years old now. A lot have happened in 8 years. No, you probably won't be able to get arch in as little disc space as XP without a lot of work. Specially since arch isn't optimized for disc space to begin with. Eg we don't split out -devel stuff.

i know it's old. that's one of the reasons why i'm looking at alternatives. i don't mind doing a lot of work to slim down arch, though.

Last edited by anti-destin (2009-02-14 18:37:32)

SamC · 2009-02-14 18:58:36

If you're putting the files in /bin, etc. yourself, you're almost certainly doing it wrong. You should learn to use the package manager for your distribution. As for the graphical style in your screenshot, you should be able to do most of that with a GTK theme and a window manager theme. If I remember correctly, both fluxbox and openbox are pretty close to bblean, but fluxbox might be more comfortable for you, as it has a built-in taskbar.

R00KIE · 2009-02-14 19:09:10

I have Arch32 installed on a virtual machine with no graphical user interface whatsoever, just the base packages and it is using around 500MB, from here on is always up .... I guess you can get something very usable with something between 1G and 1.5G.

Runiq · 2009-02-14 19:38:46

anti-destin wrote:

is it possible to do the same on linux? when i say minimalism, i mean minimalism!

You'll be in for a treat, then.

anti-destin wrote:

one of the problems i have is finding files. e.g., whenever i install a program, it's not clear where the files go. sometimes they go into usr/bin sometimes into usr/local/bin, etc. and then i have no idea where the other files (e.g., dependencies) go. one thing i don't like about windows is that installations often involve files, usually dll files, getting thrown all over the place, into the program files directory, into system32, etc. i'm not sure how much transparency or control i can have with file installations on linux. that's why i was asking.

You can list the files a given package has installed with a simple pacman command (can't remember which one, being on XP right now). As for the installation paths - it depends. There are standard folders in your / that are supposed to be used for binaries (/bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin), libraries (/var/lib, /var/lib64 iirc) etc. etc. The vast majority of applications follow these conventions, but of course there are some who don't (mostly things that weren't supposed to run on Linux right from the start). If you're really interested into these matters, you might want to have a look at this one.

fwojciec · 2009-02-14 22:26:01

anti-destin wrote:

one of the problems i have is finding files. e.g., whenever i install a program, it's not clear where the files go. sometimes they go into usr/bin sometimes into usr/local/bin, etc. and then i have no idea where the other files (e.g., dependencies) go. one thing i don't like about windows is that installations often involve files, usually dll files, getting thrown all over the place, into the program files directory, into system32, etc. i'm not sure how much transparency or control i can have with file installations on linux. that's why i was asking.

You really shouldn't think of Linux in the same way you think about Windows - they're really different. It's just going to hinder your ability to learn Linux and will inevitably result in much frustration.

For example, in a distribution like Arch you shouldn't really have to manually edit, copy, or otherwise deal with any files outside of your /home directory -- with the exception of system-wide configuration files located in /etc. Managing files in the filesystem is what the package manager is for. If you want to change how files are placed in the filesystem you do it via the package manager by rebuilding the package with appropriate options and reinstalling it. Windows doesn't have a package manager, so you have to do it manually, but it's a totally inferior, archaic method, so it's a bit absurd to set it up as an ideal that Linux should aspire to or try to replicate.

To check where the files go in the filesystem you also use the package manager; for example:

> pacman -Ql bash
bash /bin/
bash /bin/bash
bash /bin/bashbug
bash /bin/sh
bash /etc/
bash /etc/profile.bash
bash /etc/skel/
bash /etc/skel/.bash_profile
bash /etc/skel/.bashrc
bash /usr/
bash /usr/share/
bash /usr/share/info/
bash /usr/share/info/bash.info.gz
bash /usr/share/locale/
bash /usr/share/locale/en@boldquot/
bash /usr/share/locale/en@boldquot/LC_MESSAGES/
bash /usr/share/locale/en@boldquot/LC_MESSAGES/bash.mo
bash /usr/share/locale/en@quot/
bash /usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES/
bash /usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES/bash.mo
bash /usr/share/locale/ru/
bash /usr/share/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/
bash /usr/share/locale/ru/LC_MESSAGES/bash.mo
bash /usr/share/man/
bash /usr/share/man/man1/
bash /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1.gz
bash /usr/share/man/man1/bashbug.1.gz

Very simple. There are also other ways of locating files in Linux, for example the "locate" command, or the very powerful "find".

You do have more transparency in Linux, it's a system that doesn't try to hide anything from you, on the contrary... But you have to allow yourself some time to become familiar with how things are done in Linux, regardless of how well you know Windows. What you'll see at first is more complexity, which can create a sense of confusing mess, but this is because all complexity is exposed in Linux, so that the user can take control to a much greater extent.

Hrod beraht · 2009-02-14 22:50:09

anti-destin wrote:

as for my xp system, it took me several years of learning how to modify system files to get it to look like that. here's a better shot: http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7508 … hotke3.png

Based on your screenshot, you may really like the BlackWhite GTK/box theme

Bob

fphillips · 2009-02-15 03:13:49

Hrod beraht wrote:

Based on your screenshot, you may really like the BlackWhite GTK/box theme

Did you notice that screenshot was made on Arch?

R00KIE · 2009-02-15 03:35:38

You do have more transparency in Linux, it's a system that doesn't try to hide anything from you, on the contrary... But you have to allow yourself some time to become familiar with how things are done in Linux, regardless of how well you know Windows. What you'll see at first is more complexity, which can create a sense of confusing mess, but this is because all complexity is exposed in Linux, so that the user can take control to a much greater extent.

To add a little bit on this, at first it may seem a bit tricky (and with other gui driven distros it can be a little too much) but when you understand the grand scheme of things you will ask yourself how could you live for so long with the way things are done on windows.
I guess that people don't like apps that try to put files out of the normal folders where they should be and it will either be changed asap or the apps will be sort of put aside if it can't be changed .... we like our filesystems organized
Your home folder can be a big mess but thats your problem I'm sure you will figure it out very easily, when there is the will there is the way

anti-destin · 2009-02-15 04:18:41

SamC wrote:

If you're putting the files in /bin, etc. yourself, you're almost certainly doing it wrong. You should learn to use the package manager for your distribution. As for the graphical style in your screenshot, you should be able to do most of that with a GTK theme and a window manager theme. If I remember correctly, both fluxbox and openbox are pretty close to bblean, but fluxbox might be more comfortable for you, as it has a built-in taskbar.

no, i used pacman to install everything. but it seemed like program files were being placed in various directories in a rather unpredictable manner. but this might not matter.

fwojciec wrote:

You really shouldn't think of Linux in the same way you think about Windows - they're really different. It's just going to hinder your ability to learn Linux and will inevitably result in much frustration.
For example, in a distribution like Arch you shouldn't really have to manually edit, copy, or otherwise deal with any files outside of your /home directory -- with the exception of system-wide configuration files located in /etc. Managing files in the filesystem is what the package manager is for. If you want to change how files are placed in the filesystem you do it via the package manager by rebuilding the package with appropriate options and reinstalling it. Windows doesn't have a package manager, so you have to do it manually, but it's a totally inferior, archaic method, so it's a bit absurd to set it up as an ideal that Linux should aspire to or try to replicate.

upon reflection, i think you're right. i really ought to be more open-minded about how linux does things and really be serious about making the switch. i suppose you're right that file management isn't really an everyday activity and that i needn't worry so much about manually managing all the files and setting everything up a certain way. i'm really close to switching completely.

Hrod beraht wrote:

Based on your screenshot, you may really like the BlackWhite GTK/box theme
Bob

that's exactly what i'd like to do. i also found this: http://www.box-look.org/content/show.ph … a02ba7859f

arch should be far easier to customize than xp.

R00KIE wrote:

To add a little bit on this, at first it may seem a bit tricky (and with other gui driven distros it can be a little too much) but when you understand the grand scheme of things you will ask yourself how could you live for so long with the way things are done on windows.
I guess that people don't like apps that try to put files out of the normal folders where they should be and it will either be changed asap or the apps will be sort of put aside if it can't be changed .... we like our filesystems organized
Your home folder can be a big mess but thats your problem I'm sure you will figure it out very easily, when there is the will there is the way

i suppose i just have to learn good file management and go from there.

i took a look at gobolinux, and as much as i like the idea of having simple directories and self-contained packages, i don't think it's for me, simply because it seems like development has slowed down and the simplicity of the file system is only apparent.

i think i've settled on arch as my distro. but i still have a few preliminary questions before i delve into exploration.

1. partition scheme. i'd like to maintain some order and cleanliness by putting important directories, e.g., /home, on separate partitions. that way, i can reformat without losing all my settings. my first question is: how should i divide up my 5gb drive? how big should the /home directory be? are there other directories that should be on separate partitions as well?

2. is there a list with detailed descriptions of the packages in the installation? i'd like to have the slimmest base possible that will also work fairly well. what should i remove from the base installation?

Inxsible · 2009-02-15 04:53:20

I normally have 4 different partitions with different filesystems on them

/ - ext3 -- which I just changed to ext4
/home- ext4
/var - reiserfs
/boot - ext2

Ext2 is good enough for /boot since writes to this partition are very few and the size of the drive is also not more than 64MB (for me) so fscking is also fast

/var has reiserfs because reiserfs gives better performance with large number of small sized files which var has

EXT4 for the home and root.

As for your 5GB drive....things are going to be a bit tight. You may or may not want to create separate partitions. Keep in mind that if you use ext4 for your root, you will need the patched grub(the grub on the Iso CD cannot handle EXT4 in /boot) or you will need grub2 (still in development)

I have Openbox and Fluxbox installed on a 30 GB drive and have divided it as such

7GB - root
5GB - var
61MB - boot
rest (about 15 GB) - home

Of the 7gb of root, 1.5 GB is used -- with all the software that I need. Note that I do not have any office apps installed.
Of the 5GB var, 766MB is used -- this will fill up fast if you install a lot of packages -- but the good thing is that you can flush it as well using a simple command

pacman -Scc

and all the space will be available to you again.
61 MB boot is more than sufficient unless you plan to install multiple kernels to test. I have only 1 kernel and it has filled 9.8MB of the 61MB

/home varies with your usage. I have filled in 350MB -- thats less because I have another external drive where I keep most of my shared data.

So I would say that you should give quite a bit of space to root. Since you have a 5GB drive, you are obviously not going to use it for data storage so /home could be small. Also you may want to skip on creating a separate /var.

You can also see if you like other WMs apart from *boxes. They might take up a lot less space. Tiling WMs come to mind. DWM is a very lightweight WM. JWM is also a very small footprint WM. Takes up less memory to run and still gives you a pretty nice WM. Then there is IceWM - which I think takes about the same amount of space as the barebones *box WMs, but runs in less amount of memory.

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-02-15 05:11:22)

anti-destin · 2009-02-15 05:10:51

i'll probably stick to ext3, so i won't have to worry about the issues surrounding ext4.

what's the rationale for separating out /var and /boot?

i know that /home varies with usage, but what exactly goes into it? i thought it was mostly settings and configuration files. why have you reserved 15gb for it?

i want an efficient partition scheme to ensure that i don't run out or waste space. would 2gb for /home and 3gb for the rest be good?

also, i notice that you don't have a swap partition. have you encountered any problems?

dannytatom · 2009-02-15 05:12:13

I didn't know a lot of what you just said, Inxsible, so thanks for mentioning it. Definitely gonna put /var and /boot on their own partitions next time.

Inxsible · 2009-02-15 05:17:30

anti-destin wrote:

i'll probably stick to ext3, so i won't have to worry about the issues surrounding ext4.

Ext4 is quite stable. Infact many of the users are now converting their existing ext3 to ext4. But its your choice. You can wait until Ext4 becomes the norm.

anti-destin wrote:

what's the rationale for separating out /var and /boot?

The rationale for separating /var is like I mentioned earlier - you can have a different filesystem on it -- one which is better suited for the types of files that /var contains

/boot - again the same reason(more or less) - /boot is written to only when you upgrade your kernel or you make changes to your menu.lst file which is quite rare - after the initial installation. kernel upgrades also do not come in everyday. therefore there is no need for a journaling filesystem like Ext3 or Ext4.-- which take up more space on the drive too. Remember the filesystems themselves need some space on the partition.

anti-destin wrote:

i know that /home varies with usage, but what exactly goes into it? i thought it was mostly settings and configuration files. why have you reserved 15gb for it?

Well /home can actually contain anything that the user wants. /home is where all the users will have some reserved space. So if you machine has multiple users -- then you will need a bigger home to accomodate all the users. I only have one user, but like I said, I have an external drive with my shared data, so I didn't need to create any other partition for shared data...so I got lazy and just gave all the space to /home. You can create a smaller /home and another partition for data if you have the space ... but obviously not in a 5 gb drive.

anti-destin wrote:

i want an efficient partition scheme to ensure that i don't run out or waste space. would 2gb for /home and 3gb for the rest be good?

2GB for home and 3GB for root sounds just about right. But you will probably need to reserve some space for swap.

anti-destin wrote:

also, i notice that you don't have a swap partition. have you encountered any problems?

Whoops !! my bad !! I DO have a swap partition....just that I did a df -h to see the sizes (and it only shows the mounted partitions) so I totally forgot about swap in my earlier post. I have a 512MB swap -- which I think is sufficient for my 256MB RAM. I have never seen swap usage to be more than 30%

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-02-15 05:25:55)

Inxsible · 2009-02-15 05:20:52

dannytatom wrote:

I didn't know a lot of what you just said, Inxsible, so thanks for mentioning it. Definitely gonna put /var and /boot on their own partitions next time.

You are welcome.

anti-destin · 2009-02-15 05:47:07

Inxsible wrote:

The rationale for separating /var is like I mentioned earlier - you can have a different filesystem on it -- one which is better suited for the types of files that /var contains
/boot - again the same reason(more or less) - /boot is written to only when you upgrade your kernel or you make changes to your menu.lst file which is quite rare - after the initial installation. kernel upgrades also do not come in everyday. therefore there is no need for a journaling filesystem like Ext3 or Ext4.-- which take up more space on the drive too. Remember the filesystems themselves need some space on the partition.

so i take it the reason you want to have different file systems for different purposes is performance. is there a noticeable effect?

Well /home can actually contain anything that the user wants. /home is where all the users will have some reserved space. So if you machine has multiple users -- then you will need a bigger home to accomodate all the users. I only have one user, but like I said, I have an external drive with my shared data, so I didn't need to create any other partition for shared data...so I got lazy and just gave all the space to /home. You can create a smaller /home and another partition for data if you have the space ... but obviously not in a 5 gb drive.

i see. i just don't want to make my /home too small (obviously problematic) or too large (the wasted space might be needed by the other partitions).

how's this? (i'm basing this off of the numbers you gave.)
/boot: 30mb
swap: 512mb (i have 2gb ram)
/var: 1024mb
/home: 1024mb
/: the rest

adamlau · 2009-02-15 06:05:59

Tough one, anti-destin. I also use an nLited XP install weighing in at 146 MB with everything slipstreamed in. For those of you unfamiliar with running nLited XP, it can be blazing fast. Not quite NT, but very responsive. You can redirect application files to wherever you want in Linux. Symlinks and compile time options are they keys. I do not worry about minimal size installs, but maximum speed of execution installations. And while an extremely stripped and nLited XP is speedier than most people think, a well done Arch setup is right there with it, if not faster. Even an nLited XP loads a number of unrequired background services (most of mine are disabled) and libraries, consuming system resources that could best be served by foreground applications. I would much rather my OS focus on maximizing the use of resources and give me greater granular control over application and their installation destinations through a robust package management system. Regarding filesystems, here is how I set mine up (and yes, I have found mkfs.xfs -f -l size=64m,lazy-count=1 /dev/sdx and logbufs=8 to make a huge difference):

/boot = ext2 = 48 MB (I like to play around with two extra kernels)
/ = xfs = 8 GB (because of /usr, /var and /tmp on tmpfs)
/home = xfs = 4 GB (primariliy because I use ~/Desktop as a workspace pallete)
/doc = xfs = 8 GB (additional docs and references over 8 GB of archived and offloaded to removeable media)
/prog = xfs = 4 GB (for building and storing packages, compilation requires plenty of space)
/file = xfs = 275 GB (multimedia and downloads repository)
swap = swap = 512 MB (system has 3 GB of memory available to it)

Last edited by adamlau (2009-02-15 06:19:29)

Inxsible · 2009-02-15 06:14:24

anti-destin wrote:

so i take it the reason you want to have different file systems for different purposes is performance. is there a noticeable effect?

Many users claim that installation is much faster with reiserfs on their /var. I have noticed this myself as well. Unfortunately I didn't do any benchmark testing when my /var was not reiserfs...but I am sure you would find some website which has benchmark tests.

anti-destin wrote:

i see. i just don't want to make my /home too small (obviously problematic) or too large (the wasted space might be needed by the other partitions).
how's this? (i'm basing this off of the numbers you gave.)
/boot: 30mb
swap: 512mb (i have 2gb ram)
/var: 1024mb
/home: 1024mb
/: the rest

Seems good....but a quick question -- you have 2gigs of RAM and only 5Gigs of HDD ? or do you mean you have assigned only 5Gigs for linux?

1024 MB of /var is too less if you plan to retain the packages in /var. But if you flush your packages after every install then it should be ok. Retaining the packages has 1 obvious advantage that if a newer package screws up your system for some reason, you can always revert back to the old one. But this is a moot point if you only have 5GB to work with.

You could also do with 256MB of swap since you have 2GB of RAM - your swap will hardly get used.

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-02-15 06:17:11)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-14 07:46:06

contemplating moving to linux

#2 2009-02-14 07:51:59

Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

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Re: contemplating moving to linux

#24 2009-02-15 06:05:59

Re: contemplating moving to linux

#25 2009-02-15 06:14:24

Re: contemplating moving to linux

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