[wplug] Newbie questions....

David Tessitor dttessitor at home.com
Sat Mar 17 14:34:10 EST 2001


ON PARTITION SIZES --

You can get by quite well with only one cylinder for the /boot
partition.  I've been able to store a bunch of kernels and
their companion files in that amount.  On an 8 Gig drive I
gave it 2 cylinders and used it to hold kernels for two
different distributions in three installations across two
disks.  On a 20 Gig I now have 3 cylinders for about 23MB
(that's rather excessive for a single distribution set up, but
I had sooo much room I went for it anyway).

If you stay below 4 Gigs on your partitions, there is a
program out now which enables accessing ext2 partitions from
Windows.  Since your home partition will be holding data
files, you may later decide you want to access them from a
windows installation (maybe on another drive if not on the
same drive).

Also, if you think you might like to try out Win4Lin, which
enables you to run Win9x and Win programs through a linux
window (faster than run natively), you'll want to have an
additional 100MB or at least 400 - 600MB for /var, as Win4Lin
uses /var/win4lin to store the windows cab files and some
other stuff which it needs to access.

SETTING UP NEW PARTITIONS FOR EXISTING DIRECTORIES --

While on the one hand you may want to get used to RH a little
before adding any new partitions, on the other, the sooner you
set them up, the less you intermingle the directory's files
among those of other directories (i.e. the file system will
stay tighter and more orderly not having temporary and
frequently changed files intermingled with other files that
are added, resulting in less fragmentation overall).

To set up a separate partition for any directory and its
sub-directories, you first need to create a new partition.
You then simply copy over your data from the old directory
location and mount the new partition as follows:

1) Make a new directory under /mnt, perhaps "disk" or "hold"
[mkdir /mnt/"new directory"].

2) Open a term window and mount the new partition as the new
directory:
[mount /dev/hdn# /mnt/"new directory"]
-- "n" is your drive's designation, "#" is the new partition's
number, "new directory" the new /mnt sub-directory's name.

3) Copy everything in the old directory ("directory") to the
new /mnt/"new directory":
--> [cp -a /"directory"/* /mnt/"new directory"]
**Alternatively, you can use gmc (the Gnome file manager); it
has "preserve attributes" as it's copy default:
--> [open the old directory; highlight its contents; right
click on them; click "copy;" check under the second tab to set
"recursively copy" sub-directories; enter the /mnt/"directory"
name; and finally hit OK]
NOTE:  You could use "mv" instead of "cp" or "move" instead of
"copy;" that would clean out the old directory and eliminate
the need for step 8 below, but it's safer to just copy for now
and clean it out later, especially if you don't get things set
up right with the fstab the first time.

4) After everything is copied, unmount the new partition:
--> [umount /mnt/"new directory"].

5) Mount the new partition again with the old directory name:
--> [mount /dev/hdn# /"directory"]
where "directory" is the name of the one you copied over to
the new partition

6) After you try things out satisfactorily, unmount
"directory" (this is unnecessary if you've rebooted since step
5):
--> [umount /"directory"]

7) Remount the new partition as the /"directory" again, this
time using linuxconf
--> (under "System" in the menu open linuxconf; when you get
the linuxconf menu, scroll down to find the local files
submenu); linuxconf will configure /etc/fstab to automatically
mount the new partition each time you boot up (this is
probably the easiest way for a newbie).
ALTERNATIVE:  To otherwise accomplish the same thing as using
linuxconf you would need to edit the /etc/fstab file yourself
and add a line for the new partition:
--> open /etc/fstab in an editor; copy the fstab line of one
of the ext2 partitions and paste it back in again under
itself; then simply change the relevant info (i.e. /dev/hdn#
and /"directory" name), making sure the last two numbers on
the line are set to 1  2; finally save it and it will
automatically take effect the next time you boot.

8) When everything is working fine for a while and you're sure
it's OK, you can clean out the old unused files by unmounting
the new partition you've now using:
--> [umount /"directory"]
--> open "/directory" with a file manager; delete all the
files and sub-directories in it; then remount the new
partition again:
-->[mount /dev/hdn# /"directory"].

MISCELLANEOUS --

In addition to what John recommended, some people also keep
separate partitions for /opt, /usr/local, and /usr/src.  The
logic being that the first two tend to be used for programs
that are added from outside the distribution and the latter
can have work product from recompiling kernels, modules, etc.
The idea is to provide a refuge for anything you don't want
wiped by a total reinstallation.  However, if you aren't going
to add netscape 6 or much else beyond the RH installation, and
if you aren't going to be compiling, then you don't need to
set up these in separate partitions.

Dave
==============

Vincent DiAngelus wrote:

>
> OK, thats about what I was hoping for. I put 100M into swap.
> I didn't create a /var I don't know if it's possible to
> create it later or not. I have it up and running now, I used
> the custom install because for whatever reason when I tried
> desktop or server it would not see my mouse?? Now I have
> Gnome running and playing with it a bit.
>
> One other problem is the video Res. I can get the entire
> desktop on the screen but everything is soooo big! I'd like
> to bump it to 1024X768 or something close....is there an
> easy way to do this? I remember seeing at the install fest
> someone had an app that would switch between like 2 or 3 res
> just with a click. How do I get that?




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