How would you partition your HD on a clean install?

[Cotopaxi]

I made an upgrade from Kubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 and this upgrade generated a series of permission problems.

Considering that I have an individual /home partition, I am planning to make a clean install of Karmic (9.10) on a laptop with a
230GB hard disk and 2GB RAM.

The actual hard disk is mounted the following way:

Partition------File System------Mount Point-----Size
/dev/sda1------ext4-------------/home-----------204.89GB
/dev/sda2------ext4-------------/-----------------9.36GB
/dev/sda3------linux-swap-------------------------1.86GB
/dev/sda5---fat32------------/dos-------------16.77GB

In total there are some 230GB of Hard Disk available.

The fat 32 partition was not a good idea, because I can't access it from the file manager, so I will dump this partition on my next installation.

Now my question:

What partitions would you recommend to mount and what size would you give to each partition?

Thanks for your help!

[slakkie]

10 GB root sounds good.
Depending on your needs I would also create a seperate moint for /opt and perhaps even /usr. If you have a seperate slice for /usr then you can reduce the size of your root, since all applications are installed in /usr.

Eitherway, my layout:



Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf6c5f6c5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 8 64228+ 83 Linux # Seperate grub partition
/dev/sda2 9 1028 8193150 83 Linux # Debian root
/dev/sda3 1029 2048 8193150 83 Linux # Ubuntu root
/dev/sda4 2049 9729 61697632+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 * 2049 3068 8193118+ 83 Linux # Designated for test installs + additional storage when needed.
/dev/sda6 3069 3323 2048256 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 3324 3361 305203+ 83 Linux # /var/log
/dev/sda8 3362 3552 1534176 83 Linux # /opt
/dev/sda9 3553 9729 49616721 83 Linux # /home

[tommcd]

If Ubuntu is the only OS on the system then I would only use root, swap, and home. A 10-15GB root partition is plenty. Your 10GB root should be good though, unless you plan on installing tons of software, including some big 3D games like Doom3 and Quake4, etc. These games take up about 2GB each, so you may need a larger root if you want a lot of games. Those games can also be installed and run from your home directory though.
My root directory for Ubuntu has never been larger than about 3.5GB, unless I had some games like Doom3 or Quake4 on it.
The fat32 partition is of no use unless you plan to share files with a Windows system.

[Cotopaxi]

Thanks both for your replies!

Actually I am not routined enough to go Slakkie's way, I am a Kubuntu user since 2007.

So I will mount a 10-15GB root partition, a 2GB swap partition and the rest for home.

Thanks very much indeed again!

[prshah]

a 10-15GB root partition, a 2GB swap partition and the rest for home.

10-15GB for "/" is fine, but I recommend you use 2.5~3 GB for swap if you are planning to use the hibernate feature. This is because when you hibernate, your current RAM contents are dumped to the swap partition. The extra space is to make allowances for stuff that may already be in the swap, future bad sectors, etc.

Also, putting your "/home" at the last is good, because if you transfer your install to a new, bigger, hard disk, it will become very easy for you to resize your "/home".