How many partitions do you use?

[curiousnoob]

I saw this webpage ( http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/partitioning ) and was thinking the best option seemed to be the 4th option down. The one with 5 partitions.
My question is what size should the various partitions be and can this all be done with the live cd?

[meborc]

i use 4 partitions.. 1 for xp.. 1 for music, video etc (accessible by both xp and linux).. 1 ext3 partition for linux.. 1 swap partition

i don't use separate /home partition as i have all my doc's and media on the media partition and i like to start from a clean sheet every time i reinstall linux on ext3

[alienexplorers]

I use 4 partitions. hdb1=/ (10GB), hdb2=/home (10GB), hdb3=/graphics (9GB), hdb6=Data backups (4GB), hdb5=swap


Disk /dev/hdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 1284 10313698+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 1285 2566 10297665 83 Linux
/dev/hdb3 2567 3716 9237375 83 Linux
/dev/hdb4 3717 4865 9229342+ 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 4291 4865 4618687+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdb6 3717 4290 4610592 83 Linux

[jombeewoof]

I use 4 across my 2 disks.
/hda1 /windowsxp
/hdb1 /
hdb2 /data
/hdb3 swap

on my laptop I don't dual boot, so I just have / and /data

[forestpixie]

I've got 6 across 2 disks

root, home, swap, docs, music and 1 that's got gutsy on at the moment

the main thing is to either have a /home or do as meborc does - makes reinstallation easy.

[Sef]

Moved to Community Cafe.

As for me: 3 - root, home, and swap.

[misfitpierce]

2 - Ubuntu and swap... No seperate home drive.

[reacocard]

I use 6

/
/boot
/home
/var
/usr
swap

all ext3 except /boot which is ext2 (and swap which is swap). You really don't need this many though, just having swap, / and /home is plenty for most people.

[Bachstelze]

firas@Ana ~ $ mount
/dev/hda7 on / type ext3 (rw,noatime)
/dev/hda8 on /tmp type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda9 on /usr type ext3 (rw,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda10 on /var type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda6 on /data type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda2 on /ubuntu type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda11 on /slack type xfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda12 on /openbsd type ufs (ro,ufstype=44bsd)
/dev/hda14 on /openbsd/tmp type ufs (ro,ufstype=44bsd)
/dev/hda15 on /openbsd/var type ufs (ro,ufstype=44bsd)
/dev/hda16 on /openbsd/usr type ufs (ro,ufstype=44bsd)


enough ? :p

[PartisanEntity]

I use 3, one for xp, one for ubuntu and one in fat32 that's shared between the two.

[newman]

hda1 /
hda2 /swap
hda3 /home

[dptxp]

10 GB XP - FAT32
10 GB / EXT3
10 GB ext3 for data and/or for trying other OS.
15 GB FAT32 Data to be able able to read/write from XP and Linux. I do
not want XP to read/write any ext3 partitions as it can damage them.
13 GB /home EXT3
2 GB SWAP. So that I do not run of memory easily on 512 MB RAM machine.

This is on 60 GB HDD (Laptop).

A bit different on 80 GB HDD on Desktop.

[RageOfOrder]

A few :P

/dev/sda - Linux hard drive - 80GB
sda1 /boot
sda2 /swap
sda3 /
sda4 /home

/dev/sdb - Windows hard drive - 200GB
sdb1 - equivalent of /
sdb5 - Windows folder (equivalent of /boot)
sdb6 - Storage (equivalent of /home)

/dev/sdc - Music hard drive - 320GB
sdc1 - music
sdc2 - backup

How's that?


My laptop has one 160GB hard drive with four partitions
1 for /boot
1 for Slackware's /
1 for Sabayon's /
1 for /home

[zekica]

I have four partitions on both my desktop and laptop:
hda: (80GB)
hda1 - 10GB - / for feisty (ext3)
hda2 - 5GB - for testing, currently / for gutsy (ext3)
hda5 - 63GB - for data (music, movies, photos, documents etc) (ext3)
hda6 - 1GB - swap

Laptop:
sda: (40GB)
sda1 - 7GB - / for feisty (ext3)
sda2 - 5GB - for testing, currently / for OSX 10.4.10 (hfsplus)
sda5 - 25GB - for data (ext3)
sda6 - 1GB - swap

[Ultra Magnus]

Due to being careless when installing I have 6 partitions

1 - Dell Utility - Forgot to delete
2 - Vista Partition - Probably Will Delete
3 - 6 Mb of free space (Have no idea why- but too lazy to fix)
4 - /
5 - /home
6 - /swap

[samjh]

sda1 = /
sda2 = /home
sda3 = swap

[AndyCooll]

Traditionally I've usually just left Ubuntu to do a default install, so that would mean a root partition and a swap partition. And then I've added an extra drive to my file-server which is where I keep all my stuff.

Recently however, I've started putting the /home on a separate partition.

:cool:

[tom-ubuntu]

sda1 /boot ext3
sda2 swap swap
sda3 / xfs
sda4 /home xfs

[Gargamella]

i use 4 partitions.. 1 for xp.. 1 for music, video etc (accessible by both xp and linux).. 1 ext3 partition for linux.. 1 swap partition

i don't use separate /home partition as i have all my doc's and media on the media partition and i like to start from a clean sheet every time i reinstall linux on ext3

the same for me.:)

[justinin3d]

200GB for XP

Ubuntu 7.04
10GB for ext3 /
1GB for swap
39GB for ext3 /home

basically the same has the ubuntu screencasts!, which are awesome, too bad ubuntu (or linux in general) has trouble with ntfs, hopefully this is fix on future releases,

cant wait for 7.10 release next month!

[Iceni]

Let's see:
There are 6 disks in this computer, a total of 11 partitons - 3 for linux and two disks splitted in half.

250gb xp disk, one partition
320gb ubuntu disk, three partitions
250gb media disk, two partitions
250gb media disk, two partitions.
200 gb disk, right now empty.
160 gb disk also empty. Usually I use these two for testing distros etc.

[public_void]

I have 3 partitions:
ext3 - Root
swap - Swap
NTFS - Windows XP

I don't need any more, i.e. for home.

[pain of salvation]

1 for XP
/
/home
/var
another for music and videos mounted in /home/alvaro/Arquivos

[mivo]

Just three in this machine. 10 GB for /, 235 GB for /home, and 1 GB for swap. There's an external 80 GB disk that I use for backup purposes, but it is not always connected.

[aninaiian]

I currently have four on my 40 GB hardrive

5GB /
1GB swap
7GB /home
and the rest is used as a place to store my media files.

Thinking of changing the scheme as kernel compiling sometimes of fills up /. However, I rarely use more than 2GB mark for /.

[Scruffynerf]

5 partitions across 2 drives.

Drive 1:
NTFS (XP)
EXT3 (Ubuntu)
Swap (Ubuntu)

Drive 2
NTFS (XP Storage)
Ext3 (Ubuntu Storage)

[Shazaam]

Real or virtual?

Physical=
Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 9729 78148161 7 HPFS/NTFS (WinXP)

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 38913 312568641 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1 781 6273319 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6 782 3350 20635461 83 Linux (PuppyLinux)
/dev/sda7 3351 8471 41134401 83 Linux (Mepis)
/dev/sda8 * 8472 38849 244011253 83 Linux (Ubuntu)

Virtual on Ubuntu host=
hda
1. /swap
2. DSL
3. PuppyLinux
4. Knoppix
5. Mepis

hdb
1. /swap
2,3, & 4 Mandriva /boot /root & /home
5. Ubuntu

hdc
1. WinXP

Virtual on WinXP host=
Same as Ubuntu host.

[Kvark]

Tried the separate /home partition thing, regretted it when I ran out of space on root. Running out of space when there is still space left is stupid. So now I only have two, swap plus root and restore the last backup of personal data after a reinstallation, which only happens when I switch distro.

[init1]

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

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 331 2658726 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 332 9729 75489435 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 332 557 1815313+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 558 1933 11052688+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 1934 3274 10771551 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 3275 4630 10892038+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 4631 6007 11060721 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 6008 7302 10402056 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 7303 8608 10490413+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 8609 9729 9004401 83 Linux

I've got lots.
FreeDOS, Ubuntu, 2 Debian, Vector, Antix, Dream Linux, and GeexboX.

[tszanon]

/dev/md0 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type reiserfs (rw,notail)
/dev/md2 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/sdc1 type ntfs (rw,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46)
/dev/sdc5 on /media/sdc5 type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdd1 on /backup type ext3 (rw)

[Compucore]

I usually would used two hard disk one partition for the OS like ubuntu on it and the software that I want installed on the primary partition. And the second drive I would use for user accounts and their data on that one. Everyone here has their own preference on this area. There is no wrong way of doing this section here. ANd it is a matter of personal preference on it too. If your able to handle more than four hard drives on a system, they it is better of for you. ANd get it the way you want to do it. I had on my old Aptiva with a 20 and 30 gig hard drive with hoarty hedge hog on it. An just use each hard drive with a partition on each of them.

Compucore

[maybeway36]

I'll admit it. I have a lot of partitions.
1. ext3, mounted as Kubuntu / (10 GB)
2. fat32, FreeDOS partition for old games (1 GB)
3. reiserfs, mounted as Kubuntu /home (63 GB)
4. linux-swap of course (1 GB I think)
5. reiserfs, another Linux installation (3.2 GB)
(I installed GRUB to a floppy on the last one so it didn't interfere with the rest of my system)

[markp1989]

Desktop

i currently have 5 partitions across 2 drives

Drive 1(40 gb)
part 1 (ext2) geexbox 100mb
part 2 (ntfs) video files >39gb

Drive 2 (80gb)
part 1 (ntfs) windows XP
part 2 (ext3) Ubuntu
part 3 swap

Laptop :

2 partitions
part 1 (ext3) ubuntu
part 2 swap

[Nevon]

5 partitions across two drives.
Drive 1 (298gb)
Part 1 (ntfs) Windows XP 11,13gb
Part 2 (ntfs) Storage 262.7gb
Part 3 (swap) 3.77gb
part 4 (ext3) Ubuntu 20,5gb
Drive 2 (74gb)
Part 5 (ntfs) Storage 74gb

[notwen]

hda
|-hda1 / (15gb)
|-hda2 /home (64gb)
|-hda3 'swap'

sda
|-sda1 /media/sda1 (250gb)

sdb
|-sdb1 /media/sdb1 (320gb)

easy enough. =]

[yatt]

Something along the lines of:

sda and sdb
RAID1 100MB JFS mounted on /boot
RAID0 1TB JFS mounted on /

sdc
80GB NTFS mounted on /Vista

[Arwen]

Desktop 1:

hda1:Local disk of XP NTFS 30GB
hda2:Data NTFS 25GB
hda3:Arwen(for music and movies) FAT3225GB

sda1: / ext3 for ubuntu 50GB
sda2:swap 1GB
sda3:Downloads(backups and programs etc) 100GB FAT32

Desktop 2:
30GB local disc of XP NTFS
50GB Data FAT32 with 10GB in vmware for suse 10.0

Laptop(for the tiem being :-P) hd=100GB
40GB ufs for pcbsd(generally for trying other distros)
rest is space for data

[diskotek]

6

1 for windows 40 GB
3 for ubuntu :D 120 GB
3 for external hdd, 500 GB

[yuri_rage]

2 - root and swap with plenty of external storage across two 300+GB drives for music/media.

[infoseeker]

Disk 1 (80GB)
/dev/sda1 (30G for XP Home, NTFS)
/dev/sda2 (for Data, etc, ext3)

Disk 2 (80 GB)
/dev/sdb1 (1GB, swap)
/dev/sdb2 (20 GB, Feisty, ext3)
/dev/sdb3 (20 GB, Gutsy, ext3)
/dev/sdb4 (40 GB spare space, ext3)

[happysmileman]

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB

/dev/hda1 * 1 6374 51199123+ 7 HPFS/NTFS //Windows XP
/dev/hda3 6375 9729 26949037+ 5 Extended //I think that just means the below entries are on extended partition?
/dev/hda5 6375 9453 24732004+ 83 Linux //Ubuntu
/dev/hda6 9454 9729 2216938+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris //Swap

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB

/dev/sda1 * 1 5 40131 83 Linux //Gentoo /boot (isn't used but not bothered to delete such a small partition)
/dev/sda2 6 130 1004062+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris //Gentoo swap
/dev/sda3 131 6210 48837600 83 Linux //Gentoo
/dev/sda4 6211 11048 38861235 b W95 FAT32 //Music and Black Books box set, and at times backup

The rest of my 250GB drive is unused (almost two-thirds of it... Don't have much of a use, but unused space can always be used for new distros or something.)
Also no /home partition, can backup anything I need anyway to external, and don't want to share between ubuntu and gentoo anyway

[koenn]

I saw this webpage ( http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/partitioning ) and was thinking the best option seemed to be the 4th option down. The one with 5 partitions.
My question is what size should the various partitions be and can this all be done with the live cd?
That one is indeed a good layout for a multiboot system. Sizes depend on your needs, but follow the guidelines in the article, or try
10-15 GB Windows (NTFS) system
5-10 GB Ubuntu /
small /home ( few 100mb - 1GB) - it will only hold your user settings/preferenses for Ubuntu, assuming you store all other data on the FAT32 partition (that you can also reach from Windows)
the rest : data - as big as possible.

other schemes only make sense if you have special requirements for your computer, and understand their consequences re. the filesystem, etc. so you can accomodate for them by tweaking the partitioning scheme.


Here's mine:


Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 4.8G 3.4G 1.2G 74% /
/dev/hda2 swap
/dev/hda3 59M 28M 28M 50% /boot
/dev/hda5 29G 26G 2.2G 93% /home
/dev/hda6 41G 37G 2.9G 93% /srv


/boot is a leftover from some experiments,
/srv is what i use for data that doesn't belong to a specific user - a collection of CD images, backups from config files, downloads, ...
I keep those seperate because it sorts of reflects the wauy i partition my server(s) : users have a /home, but data (database, web pages, file shares) go under /srv (in stead of the more usual /var, where they get mixed with log files, spools, ..)