partition layout segestions -- for what i want to do

[steve941]

ok, at some point when I get some extra extra spare time, id like to kill my drive, make a new partition layout, do fresh install of XP Pro SP2 and Fedora 6 here's what i have in mind
i have an 80 GB internal hard drive <as well as 80GB externel which will come later>

/dev/sdb1 75MB /boot 83 Linux - ext3
/dev/sdb2 10GB /root 83 Linux - ext3
/dev/sdb3 10GB (for XP Pro main installation) 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 <remaning - ~50GB> 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 10GB for /home 83 Linux - ext3
/dev/sdb6 20GB for Docs & Settings 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb7 <remaining - 17.5GB -- Program Files?> 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb8 2.5GB b vfat
/dev/sdb9 1GB swap 83 Linux - swap

<ill be sure to get the correct partition identifiers, but i think thats right>

i have to futher look into using a separatin NTFS partition and mounting it as Docs & Settings, I know XP pro allows mounting partitions with existing directory paths instead of as separate drives.

but id really like to try separating out the partitions so occasionally i can make backups easier to my external drive:
ex after installing
using dd, backup my mbr, boot, root and XP pro install partition totalling about 20GB

currently im using FC5 LVM reiser .. and i dd my LVM parition as well as boot partition and it makes things much simpler if i have to restore say after doing something really dumb, or temporarily trying out Vista Pre-RC1 -- the case this time

backing up /home in linux and Docs and Settings XP wouldnt be neccessary any more as they are separated and i would be able to ignore doing anything to those partitions if i needed to reinstall

anyway, let me know if im going crazy or list segestions

ex: maybe tell me to add even more partitions so im up in the double digits .. heh he .. does 9 partitions seem rediculous?

[hollywoodb]

That's a lot of partitions.

I seriously doubt you'll need 75MB for /boot unless you like to keep old kernels around. Fedora typically keeps two kernels, and entire /boot is typically under 12MB.

Specifically, I don't see the point of a seperate /boot on a desktop system. If you mess up your FC5 installation, but /boot is safe, what exactly are you going to boot with those kernels you have ready?

10GB might be a little light for XP installation. Some things just won't install to Program Files like they should. I recently installed HP printer drivers that dropped 245MB into C:\Windows on a system.

Unless you're going to store lots of downloads and media in My Documents, that seems a bit large as well.

I generally keep a Windows installation to one partition. I just don't like it squirming about my disk :P
I also generally only keep / and /home partitions for linux. If anything I'll leave about 10GB available at the end of my disk, in case I want to have multple linux distros or versions installed on my system. My desktop system currently has and will keep FC5 w/ Planet CCRMA, but I've another partition ready for FC6 or anything else I might like to throw on it.

[steve941]

i wanted to see if i could mount that /dev/sda7 as Program Files

but yeah now that im thinkin .. that probably wont work ..
well what about a separate partition for Docs and Settings -- basically the same idea as a separate home partition in linux hmm .. i have to look into this more. I wouldnt have any ideas how to mount that partition at XP install time as Documents and Setting instead of something like F:, so if i can't do that, that separate partition would most likely be useless ... to be continued

[mr_manny]

Separate home and tmp are always good...
Don't forget to setup /tmp with nosuid,noexec:

# grep tmp /etc/fstab
LABEL=/tmp /tmp ext3 rw,nodev,nosuid,noexec