Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

RichAustin · 2011-09-18 16:37:11

Hi All

This morning I killed my laptop. No, it wasn't Windows that annoyed me, I was watching the Rugby and wasn't really concentrating. It was 7am kick off though. Anyway, I have decided to completely rebuild the system, and as an interim measure have installed Ubuntu (cos it is simple and quick to install - btw Oneiric is actually not bad at all).

Now, to the question. I have a 500gb hard drive on my laptop. I ideally would like:

1) Essential - data partition of about 80Gb or so. I want this so that I can point Dropbox, Videos, etc. at this.
2) Essential - Arch as the main system.
3) Not really essential - Ubuntu - I do like Ubuntu, and besides i find it convenient to use one Dropbox account on Arch and one on Ubuntu. Ideally I would like to be able to use both on Arch but...
4) Would like - CentOS or Scientific Linux. Essentially a RHEL lookalike. It's not really necessary but it would look better on my cv or whatever. Problem here being that CentOS et al use LVM.

No Windows to complicate things.

What I guess I'm really asking is what order to create the partitions and a suggested layout. I figure on giving a big chunk to the data partition, and then pointing all of the other systems at Documents, Video, Music etc. on the data partition. Whatever OS's I install I just want them to work along with each other, and essentially home (apart from settings) will be on the data partition, i.e. Videos, Music etc.

Any suggestions welcome, particularly in terms of what to install first, second etc. Should the data partition be at the start or end of the drive? One swap partition? By the way my laptop has 3Gb ram.

Thanks
Rich

Last edited by RichAustin (2011-09-18 16:39:24)

vacant · 2011-09-18 17:17:25

RichAustin wrote:

Problem here being that CentOS et al use LVM.

You could use LVM throughout. I have just two physical partitions, sda1 200MB /boot (because grub can't boot encrypted) and sda2 the rest, luks-encrypted. On sda2 I have whatever LVs I want.

You may need the alternate Ubuntu install CD to install onto LVM.

DJQuiteFriendly · 2011-09-18 19:23:11

The most convenient option (in my opinion) would be mounting your data partition to /home. This way, you could carry your configuration files for apps across distros, if you so choose. Your swap partition would probably only be useful to you if you want to hibernate because you have 3 gigs of ram already. I have 4 gigs on my laptop and I only went above 1 or 2 when I had tons of apps open at the same time. I haven't checked, but I imagine it's less for Arch. If you want to be able to hibernate, it has to at least be the size of your ram. Your root partitions for the distros should be 15-20gb each.

RichAustin · 2011-09-18 19:24:23

vacant wrote:

RichAustin wrote:
Problem here being that CentOS et al use LVM.
You could use LVM throughout. I have just two physical partitions, sda1 200MB /boot (because grub can't boot encrypted) and sda2 the rest, luks-encrypted. On sda2 I have whatever LVs I want.
You may need the alternate Ubuntu install CD to install onto LVM.

Good point. I thought I had seen an Ubuntu that supported LVM.

cybertorture · 2011-09-18 19:30:43

With GPT partition table you can use up to 128 primary partitions.

tooke · 2011-09-19 05:12:36

DJQuiteFriendly wrote:

The most convenient option (in my opinion) would be mounting your data partition to /home. This way, you could carry your configuration files for apps across distros, if you so choose.

I don't know if sharing configuration files is a good idea. I've never tried it, but I'd be afraid of distros messing with each other and causing problems. Perhaps it wouldn't be a problem though, like I said I've never tried it.

As for a layout, here's what I would do:

/dev/sda1 - extended partition to hold everything else
/dev/sda5 - data partition
/dev/sda6 - arch, 15 GB
/dev/sda7 - ubuntu, 15 GB
/dev/sda8 - centOS/scientific/whatever, 15 GB
/dev/sda9 - swap, 4 GB

any left over space would go to the data partition. The swap partition will be big enough to allow hibernating.
Order isn't hugely important. Mainly whatever feels best to you is fine. Theoretically, having arch next to the data partition will mean less distance for the hard drive to seek across, though I doubt it would make any noticable difference. Also, if you want to install another linux distro all you have to do is shrink the data partition.

one swap partition is fine (unless you were planning on having multiple distros hibernating at the same time? I don't know how that would work out.)

I should mention that I don't know anything about LVM, so I don't know if it would complicate things/provide a better solution.

RichAustin · 2011-09-19 07:09:21

DJQuiteFriendly wrote:

The most convenient option (in my opinion) would be mounting your data partition to /home. This way, you could carry your configuration files for apps across distros, if you so choose. Your swap partition would probably only be useful to you if you want to hibernate because you have 3 gigs of ram already. I have 4 gigs on my laptop and I only went above 1 or 2 when I had tons of apps open at the same time. I haven't checked, but I imagine it's less for Arch. If you want to be able to hibernate, it has to at least be the size of your ram. Your root partitions for the distros should be 15-20gb each.

Good point about Swap. I wouldn't mount the data partition as /home because of the possibility of different OS's screwing up the settings. However, I do point the .thunderbird folder at the data partition though because it makes it one heck of a lot easier to keep contacts etc. synchronised across distro's. Not sure this approach would work with everything though. Why on earth haven't Mozilla written a decent method of synching Thunderbird?

tooke wrote:

As for a layout, here's what I would do:
/dev/sda1 - extended partition to hold everything else
/dev/sda5 - data partition
/dev/sda6 - arch, 15 GB
/dev/sda7 - ubuntu, 15 GB
/dev/sda8 - centOS/scientific/whatever, 15 GB
/dev/sda9 - swap, 4 GB

I had a similar layout in mind to this. Thanks for the suggestions.

Rich

cybertorture · 2011-09-19 17:15:39

"/dev/sda1 - extended partition to hold everything else"
i m not sure if you can use this layout, unless you do not want to use grub ( or w/e ) in floppy or usb stick

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-18 16:37:11

Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#2 2011-09-18 17:17:25

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#3 2011-09-18 19:23:11

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#4 2011-09-18 19:24:23

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#5 2011-09-18 19:30:43

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#6 2011-09-19 05:12:36

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#7 2011-09-19 07:09:21

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

#8 2011-09-19 17:15:39

Re: Partitioning - best way 500gb drive, 3 Linux OS's and a data partition

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