give it another go

Hi,
I want to install Linux on my new PC. I shrunk the HD and now have 450GB of free space (unallocated I should say).
I had Linux installed on my laptop but the darn auto config thing would never set up the space correctly. And I had to manually set up the root dir, etc. And I can not remember how large I made the directories. I remember finding out later i had used way more space than I needed.

So how much overall space should I allow for the entire Linux OS and how large should each directory be?
And how do I set up the swap space?

thanks all!

Eric

26 Jan 10

The general recommendation for swap space is twice your installed RAM size. As for the root directory, even a fully loaded distro will not take more than 5GB, I have several testing distros installed on 20GB, but for a normal user I recommend 40GB+ for new programs, in addition you can also setup a separate home partition so you have allocated space for your personal files so they won't squeeze out the system and application files.

27 Jan 10

I always use a single partition for the whole linux system.
I have several linux systems on different partitions on my hard drive.
I also have a swap partition and larger partitions that I use for storage
(that's where I download the isos, etc.).
On the partition I'm currently on I use slackware 12.2 and here's the
output of the command

$ df -h /

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/root              13G  6.3G  5.9G  52% /

As you can see, even with an 8GB partition you'd stil have plenty of room.
You could create a larger partition for large downloads (iso files, videos, etc.)

27 Jan 10

The major issue with have too little extra space allocated is installation of new programs, large logs file or /tmp files can fill up your root partition which would cause the system to crash. I know that when using Slackware, if you use blackbuilds or sbopkg all builds are kept in the /tmp directory and that will quickly increase in size, I have caught my /tmp at over 6G before.

27 Jan 10

thanks for the help!

I have another question.
Being that I am windows based at the moment (windows 7) does one usually install from a burned CD?
The only Linux that I successfully installed was Linux Mint (Ubuntu) I burned a cd. and then it asked me about whether to install along side windows, in place of windows or separately (I think that was it). So what do you suggest?

I don't want to replace windows entirely so what happens if I choose along side windows? Are there advantages or drawbacks?

Maybe I am doing something wrong.....not sure. Is there a complete step by step guide with any of these installations of Linux?
I probably want to go with a desktop type. I am not a programmer and not really interested in programming. I just want a PC that operates reliably.

thanks again.
eric

27 Jan 10

Just be careful and pay attention to ALL instructions/options when you boot the CD. All LIVE-type Linux CD/DVDs will always have an option to install manually (allows you to set up partitions and mount points). Other type Linux installation CD/DVDs also allow manual installation, but you need to be wee bit more skillful because they are not graphic installers... or they are very minimal graphic installers. Words seem to scare new Linux explorers away.

For a tutorial on dual boot installation with windows, just do a search at Google for:

dual boot how to windows linux

You'll get a bazillion hits. Google is your friend. :)

Linux.com

give it another go

czar960

mfillpot

vonbiber

mfillpot

czar960

vtel57

Who we are ?

Explore

Stay Current

About Linux.com

The Linux Foundation