The best way to Install Linux

[Hippytaff]

I get the SWAP thing then, it's essentially just some extra space for your RAM to allocate resources when it gets overloaded. A very nice idea really.

Now if you assume 2 partitions for "/" and "/home" how easy is it to reinstall Linux on the root partition? Are there any points you would need to consider, or would a flat re-install while leaving /home alone leave all your files in-tact and assessable?

Thats the theory

[Sylslay]

I often have dual boot on hdd.

Becouse hdd have 2 pleats and sometimes 2 heads, usually do partitions lake that:

[(full HDD size)-1GB (for swap)]2

Than my hdd is bit faster (optimizated for geometry) -meaby?

So its pration are

(ext4 halfsize minus 512MB) and 1GB Swap and (ext4 halfsize minus 512MB)

But newer run benchmark to confirm that partitoning is better then others say 24% plus 2GB swap plus 74% when hdd=100GB

[HermanAB]

I don't think anyone mentioned it:
You need your /swap to be at least 2xRAM if you want to use Suspend, otherwise suspend won't work.

For a personal machine I normally make:
/ = 20GB
/swap = 2xRAM
/home = rest

Unless it is a server, in which case there are many more things to worry about.

[Joshwaa]

Well I have one partition for my Win7 backup, another one labeled "System Reserved" then I have a 30gb Ubuntu partition which has the bootloader installed on that partition and a EasyBCD loader as my main loader so if I need to I can just delete the partition. I'd get a Swap space partition but I can't as I already have 4 partitions.. hmm.. if anyone knows if system reserved is useless then let me know through PM or whatever

[Elfy]

I don't think anyone mentioned it:
You need your /swap to be at least 2xRAM if you want to use Suspend, otherwise suspend won't work.

For a personal machine I normally make:
/ = 20GB
/swap = 2xRAM
/home = rest

Unless it is a server, in which case there are many more things to worry about.

suspend works with swap=ram here (or at least more or less = )

[Elfy]

Well I have one partition for my Win7 backup, another one labeled "System Reserved" then I have a 30gb Ubuntu partition which has the bootloader installed on that partition and a EasyBCD loader as my main loader so if I need to I can just delete the partition. I'd get a Swap space partition but I can't as I already have 4 partitions.. hmm.. if anyone knows if system reserved is useless then let me know through PM or whatever

You can use a swap file instead of a swap partition in some cases - depends really.

[Joshwaa]

You can use a swap file instead of a swap partition in some cases - depends really.

A swap file? What's that?

[amjjawad]

If you reinstall with a seperate /home choose Manual/Advanced partitioning - set the mount points and make sure to NOT format the /home partition.

If you reinstall without a seperate /home choose Manual/Advanced partitioning - set the mount points and make sure NOT to format the / partition and the existing /home will remain as it is.

I liked that so much and honestly I was looking for such advice.
However, is it safe to do that without losing anything? I've never tried it yet but I'm willing to.

[Elfy]

A swap file? What's that?

Swap is generally associated with a swap partition, perhaps because the user is prompted to create a swap partition at the time of installation. In fact, any file can be used as a swapping device, be it a partition or a conventional file. Although, to improve the responsiveness, it's recommended to have a good sized amount of RAM available. Swap can be added by adding a swap file.

A file instead of a partition.

[Joshwaa]

Swap is generally associated with a swap partition, perhaps because the user is prompted to create a swap partition at the time of installation. In fact, any file can be used as a swapping device, be it a partition or a conventional file. Although, to improve the responsiveness, it's recommended to have a good sized amount of RAM available. Swap can be added by adding a swap file.

A file instead of a partition.

I found a guide on the internet, so it'd be such thing as

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/4096Mb.swap bs=1M count=4096

To start it off?