Question regarding Ranish Partition Manager

[Richard Steven Hack]

What I want to do is to have the master disk have three partitions.
One (~30 gb)for the existing Windows, the other two (~15 gb ea.) for
Linux, one for root and one for swap.

Whoa, John! You don't need 15GB for swap! On Linux, you only need
twice RAM to a maximum of 512MB! I hope you meant you want one for
root and one for /home.

I've read up to 512 mb is good.

Oops, I guess that is what you meant.

What you need then is THREE partitions for Linux - one for / (i..e.,
root), one for /home, and one for swap.

How big you make / and /home depends on how you intend to install
software and how much data (pictures, video, whatever) you intend to
use Linux for. When I download software, I store the install files on
a separate partition, then install the software into wherever it wants
to go (see the File Hierarchy Standard site for that
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/). Since I intend to store a ton of stuff
on my Linux system over time, I made / pretty big. A basic Linux
install these days can eat up several GB of / easy.

However, you can also make /opt and /usr separate partitions as most
application (as opposed to system) software can be installed in them.

Put all your documents, pictures, etc. under directories under your
user home directory under /home.

Keep in mind, too, that Linux can read and write FAT32 file systems,
so all your Windows data will be available to Linux from the native
Windows directories. You might have to tweak the /etc/fstab file
system configuration file to tell Linux you're the owner of those
Windows partitions and to automount them whenever you boot up - I
don't know, maybe the current distros do that automatically now.

And if you're dual booting, you might as well bring down the freeware
Explore2fs program so you can occasionally look at your Linux side
from your Windows side. Nice proggie I've used a number of times when
I was too lazy to boot into Linux.
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

 

[dszady]

Whoa, John! You don't need 15GB for swap! On Linux, you only need
twice RAM to a maximum of 512MB! I hope you meant you want one for
root and one for /home.

512m for swap here which works nicely with 256m RAM. Maybe too much since I
just checked it and it was using 5% of swap, but then I only have Knode
running.
Then I have 7+g for root at 34% right now (may not be enough) but have
plenty of room for a re-partition. I don't store pictures or movies on HDD.
Too many mishaps from not backing up from when I used Windows.
I would say it took me about 2 weeks to wean from Windows and another month
to wean from WINE.
I admit I am now a total Linux whore.

What you need then is THREE partitions for Linux - one for / (i..e.,
root), one for /home, and one for swap.

How big you make / and /home depends on how you intend to install
software and how much data (pictures, video, whatever) you intend to
use Linux for. When I download software, I store the install files on
a separate partition, then install the software into wherever it wants
to go (see the File Hierarchy Standard site for that
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/). Since I intend to store a ton of stuff
on my Linux system over time, I made / pretty big. A basic Linux
install these days can eat up several GB of / easy.

However, you can also make /opt and /usr separate partitions as most
application (as opposed to system) software can be installed in them.

Put all your documents, pictures, etc. under directories under your
user home directory under /home.

Keep in mind, too, that Linux can read and write FAT32 file systems,
so all your Windows data will be available to Linux from the native
Windows directories. You might have to tweak the /etc/fstab file
system configuration file to tell Linux you're the owner of those
Windows partitions and to automount them whenever you boot up - I
don't know, maybe the current distros do that automatically now.

And if you're dual booting, you might as well bring down the freeware
Explore2fs program so you can occasionally look at your Linux side
from your Windows side. Nice proggie I've used a number of times when
I was too lazy to boot into Linux.
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

Good advice.

 

[John Corliss]

Richard Steven Hack wrote:
(clipped for brevity)

My thanks to the both of you for all this great advice. I've saved
your posts as text files for reference later.

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

What I want to do is to have the master disk have three partitions.
One (~30 gb)for the existing Windows, the other two (~15 gb ea.) for
Linux, one for root and one for swap.

With Linux you don't use the Swap partition for anything else. It's
marked with a special partition identifier to ensure, no program
writes accidentally onto it. So there's no need to split into two
15 GByte for Linux. On the other hand: You can create 3 partitions
for Linux: System, Data, and Swap.

[Swap-Size]

I've read up to 512 mb is good.

Uh. If you do excessive video editing or such memory intense things.
Otherwise 128 to 256 MByte will suffice. But as you seem to have
plenty space you can play it *very* safe and use these 512 MByte. ;-)

Is there any way to use the Linux Swap partition for the windows swap
file? Seems a waste to tie up two large chunks of hard drive space
when only one OS is ever running at any time.

 

[REM]

(Achim Nolcken Lohse) wrote:

Is there any way to use the Linux Swap partition for the windows swap
file? Seems a waste to tie up two large chunks of hard drive space
when only one OS is ever running at any time.

I don't think so, unless someone is very clever. The Linux Swap is formatted as
Linux swap.

 

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

Is there any way to use the Linux Swap partition for the windows swap
file? Seems a waste to tie up two large chunks of hard drive space
when only one OS is ever running at any time.

It's a FAQ for Linux. ;-)

There *are* some ways to avoid wasting space for *two* swaps:

- Let Linux Swap into a file, too. Delete the not needed at startup.
Or just kill always the recently used at shutdown. (Or let Linux
*and* Windows swap into the *same* file. - You have nevertheless
to run mkswap at Linux boot to re-initialize the file.)
-> Not recommended
- Change the Swap-Partition on boot up to resemble the actual needs.
Linux: Swap-Mark and initialization / Windows: OS readable FS
-> A bit time consuming at system starts. (A bit quicker if not
done unconditionally, but only on need.)

HTH.
BeAr

 

[Ardent]

X-No-Archive: yes

Version 2.43: can work with disks greater than 8GB; also, it can
support up to 30 primary partitions."

Version 2.44 is already there.

I have been using Ranish's Partition Manager for years - the interface
of 2.37 was much easier to understand for a beginner but it can see
only the smaller disks.

The interface in 2.44 is a little more daunting for a beginner -
actually it displays lot more information to the user.

The program is very powerful but it needs some understanding of the
hard disk geometry and how partitions are made. Must RTFM :0)

HTH

--
Sandy Archer
Reply to newsgroup only

For links to Harddisk management freeware
http:/members.tripod.com/~diligent/harddisk.htm

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

Version 2.44 is already there.

Listed as "Beta-Beta-Beta" which sounds a bit dangerous for partition
management use on any system you can't afford to screw up.

 

[John Corliss]

Listed as "Beta-Beta-Beta" which sounds a bit dangerous for partition
management use on any system you can't afford to screw up.

Agreed. Exactly why I forwent downloading it. On the other hand, it's
nice to know that development of the program is still ongoing.