On Friday 28 July 2006 12:33, Per Jessen wrote:

I think we'll need to understand why you've created all of these partitions?  A typical setup might look like this:

hda1 - size 64M, for /boot hda2 - swapspace - e.g. 1.5Gb as you've got hda3 - size 20Gb for / (root) hda4 - the rest for /home

You can certainly create extended partitions for e.g. /var and other things, but your setup seems to be a little off the beaten track.

Maybe you just accepted the partitioners default suggestion when your disk was already partitioned?  Personally I would do a reinstall instead of trying to fix it.

Very correct, although I would add that using an extended partition for one or more of the above would allow for expansion. As proposed he would be out of partitions and would have to devote the entire 160GB among /home and / which is waay more than needed. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Friday 28 July 2006 13:43, Per Jessen wrote:

Bruce Marshall wrote:

...

Very correct, although I would add that using an extended partition for one or more of the above would allow for expansion.

It's certainly a viable option - I don't think I've ever bothered doing it myself.

Really? I always use logical partitions but I tend to keep my previous release (10.0) along with anything new (10.1) so I need more partitions.

...

As proposed he would be out of partitions and would have to devote the entire 160GB among /home and / which is waay more than needed.

Depends on what you do - a fair amount of video recording/editing will gobble up those 160Gb fairly fast. I said 20Gb for root (/) to allow for lots of space in /usr/src, in /var and /tmp, the typical growth areas apart from /home. I think I usually allocate 10Gb for root these days.

True but he would still have the option to add more partitions. I think I allocate about 13 or 15GB for root these days. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

...

...

Depends on what you do - a fair amount of video recording/editing will gobble up those 160Gb fairly fast. I said 20Gb for root (/) to allow for lots of space in /usr/src, in /var and /tmp, the typical growth areas apart from /home. I think I usually allocate 10Gb for root these days.

True but he would still have the option to add more partitions. I think I allocate about 13 or 15GB for root these days.

I do partitioning because the OSes require it, not for.. whatever. Like this Disk /dev/hda: 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/hda1 1 66 530113+ 82 Linux/Swap /dev/hda2 67 1354 10345860 83 Linux/XFS /dev/hda3 * 1355 4094 22009050 7 NTFS /dev/hda4 4095 4865 6193057+ 5 Extended /dev/hda5 4095 4865 6193026 c W95 FAT32 (LBA) Disk /dev/hdc: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hdc1 1 63 506016 82 Linux/Swap /dev/hdc2 64 30515 244605690 83 Linux/XFS And never have the problem to deal with repartitioning since everything (that is, hda2) is one nice big blob. Even if hdc was not there, I would do it like this, and not move /home to a different partition. If you want to reinstall, just boot a rescue system and remove all but /home beforehand. Jan Engelhardt -- -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Saturday 29 July 2006 02:00, Per Jessen wrote:

Jan Engelhardt wrote:

...

I do partitioning because the OSes require it, not for.. whatever.

I guess that's one reason - I don't think SUSE Linux has any requirement for partitions other than a / (root) though. I partition mostly for system management reasons.

Yes, its often wise, on servers at least, to prevent some user or some virus in a user's Windows machine from filling all available space causing the system to come down. Keeping the users in a sandbox of a specific size helps. On home machines, I like to keep /home on a different partition (preferably a different drive) to make upgrading the OS easier. With Vmware, I don't need any other wasteful partitions anymore. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

On Friday 28 July 2006 21:35, richard bown wrote:

back again after a fresh install, not very happy will the "custom" partition, you are only allowed 4 primary partitions !

This isn't a suse limitation, but a limitation of the whole primary/extended architecture. In my experience (12 years with Linux) you never need more than 4 partitions: / [swap] /home /another_one i always keep /another_one around for installing my OS when i do upgrades. Once i upgrade, /another_one because / and / because /another_one. That way i can always keep 2 revs of the OS around with minimal hassle. -- ----- stephan@s11n.net http://s11n.net "...pleasure is a grace and is not obedient to the commands of the will." -- Alan W. Watts

richard bown wrote:

Personally I would prefer more physical partitions, 4 was OK in the days of hard drives that were less than 200MB, but now with drives larger than 200GB its a restriction, but that's my opinion.

Why not use logical partitions then? I'm not sure why having more space on the disk really creates a need for having more partitions, but like you said, it's your opinion. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Sat, 2006-07-29 at 21:11 -0400, James Knott wrote:

richard bown wrote:

...

On Sat, 2006-07-29 at 11:28 +0200, stephan beal wrote:

...

...

back again after a fresh install, not very happy will the "custom" partition, you are only allowed 4 primary partitions ! This isn't a suse limitation, but a limitation of the whole

On Friday 28 July 2006 21:35, richard bown wrote: primary/extended architecture. In my experience (12 years with Linux) you never need more than 4 partitions:

/ [swap] /home /another_one

i always keep /another_one around for installing my OS when i do upgrades. Once i upgrade, /another_one because / and / because /another_one. That way i can always keep 2 revs of the OS around with minimal hassle.

Yes I realise that , mental screw up at this end. Personally I would prefer more physical partitions, 4 was OK in the days of hard drives that were less than 200MB, but now with drives larger than 200GB its a restriction, but that's my opinion.

What can you do with a primary partition, that you can't do with a logical partition?

Its when the crap hits the fan it makes a difference. Its more likely to be able to salvage some of the contents of a HD with more physical partitions. Or if you change distros you can sometimes use the same partition table to keep /home and a partition used for storage, video etc. as I said personal preferences. Richard -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Sun, 2006-07-30 at 12:29 -0400, Bruce Marshall wrote:

On Sunday 30 July 2006 05:12, richard bown wrote:

...

...

What can you do with a primary partition, that you can't do with a logical partition?

Its when the crap hits the fan it makes a difference. Its more likely to be able to salvage some of the contents of a HD with more physical partitions. Or if you change distros you can sometimes use the same partition table to keep /home and a partition used for storage, video etc. as I said personal preferences.

Richard

Certainly is a personal preference. I don't agree with any of it.

What would changing distros have to do with whether you can keep /home or not based on its partition being physical??

It would be a very strange place if we were all the same :) if /home is a physical partition it wont make any difference, but if is a logical partition its easily lost. -- Richard Bown -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Sun, 2006-07-30 at 18:54 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Richard Bown wrote:

...

It would be a very strange place if we were all the same :) if /home is a physical partition it wont make any difference, but if is a logical partition its easily lost.

I'm not sure that makes much sense - can you elaborate? I'll try. If Murphy strikes and you lose a physical partition, for what ever reason, you lose any logical partitions on it. Also if you change distro you stand a much better chance that the new distro will accept the existing partition table and just format / & /usr. There's an old saying about putting too many eggs in one basket.

I hope that makes sense Richard

AFAICS, the only difference between a physical and a logical partition is where the partition-limits are recorded.

/Per Jessen, Zürich

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On Sunday 30 July 2006 13:33, Richard Bown wrote:

...

I'll try. If Murphy strikes and you lose a physical partition, for what ever reason, you lose any logical partitions on it. Also if you change distro you stand a much better chance that the new distro will accept the existing partition table and just format / & /usr. There's an old saying about putting too many eggs in one basket.

I hope that makes sense

No, it doesn't. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

In 20+ years of using well over 2 doz computers and probably 75 HD's, I have never lost a logical partition. I've lost entire drives... and that is usually the case but partitioning doesn't have anything to do with losses. Older hard drives were smaller and far more reliable, I still have a could of 30MB drives that still work, pulled from either a 286 or early

On Sun, 2006-07-30 at 13:41 -0400, Bruce Marshall wrote: 386. I've only started to see a lot of failures of the 80GB recently, especially in hot weather. The new drives are not as reliable as the early HDs they spin faster and the data density is far higher and they are more fragile. What is it 300GB HDs available now, and all that flying around at 7800 rpm or faster. When the specs were written for the amount of physical partitions it was done when 100MB was a luxury, Any thing that has high speed moving parts is a recipe for Murphy to strike, and when its disk damage the more physical partitions the better you can at least move the head past the damaged sectors and if your lucky recover some data. However, Murphy's law states that the data you want will be in the bit that's bust. As you said we will have to agree to disagree Richard

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Richard Bown wrote:

On Sun, 2006-07-30 at 13:41 -0400, Bruce Marshall wrote:

...

In 20+ years of using well over 2 doz computers and probably 75 HD's, I have never lost a logical partition. I've lost entire drives... and that is usually the case but partitioning doesn't have anything to do with losses.

I have to agree with Bruce - I've also only ever lost a disk, never just a partition. And after all, the partition is just a set of limits recorded in a pre-defined area on the disk.

Older hard drives were smaller and far more reliable, I still have a could of 30MB drives that still work, pulled from either a 286 or early 386.

That I agree with - 10 years ago, harddrives were a lot sturdier than they are today. I have some sub-1Gb drives, probably from the early 90s, and they're still working fine.

I've only started to see a lot of failures of the 80GB recently, especially in hot weather. The new drives are not as reliable as the early HDs they spin faster and the data density is far higher and they are more fragile. What is it 300GB HDs available now, and all that flying around at 7800 rpm or faster.

What has really changed is that the manufacturers have gotten much better at controlling the MTTR of the drives. When a desktop drive comes with a 3 year warranty and a server drive with 5 years, it's been very carefully calculated taking into account expected duty-cycle etc.

When the specs were written for the amount of physical partitions it was done when 100MB was a luxury, Any thing that has high speed moving parts is a recipe for Murphy to strike, and when its disk damage the more physical partitions the better you can at least move the head past the damaged sectors and if your lucky recover some data.

I looked over some stats at a data-recovery firm not long ago - most problems with drives are in the drive electronics. A head-crash is something that happened a long time ago. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

stephan beal wrote:

On Friday 28 July 2006 21:35, richard bown wrote:

...

back again after a fresh install, not very happy will the "custom" partition, you are only allowed 4 primary partitions !

This isn't a suse limitation, but a limitation of the whole primary/extended architecture. In my experience (12 years with Linux) you never need more than 4 partitions:

/ [swap] /home /another_one

12 years with Linux and you never needed a /boot partition? Good going - there was a time when lilo would only work off the first 1024 cylinders of a drive. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

stephan beal wrote:

On Saturday 29 July 2006 11:56, Per Jessen wrote:

...

12 years with Linux and you never needed a /boot partition? Good going - there was a time when lilo would only work off the first 1024 cylinders of a drive.

Back in those days i didn't have my /another_one partition - that was /boot. (Yes, i remember the days when i had to manually set my HDD geometry.)

Ah yes, I'd luckily forgotten about that :-) I tend to still have the /boot partition - just a bad habit now, of course. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

stephan beal wrote:

On Sunday 30 July 2006 12:41, Per Jessen wrote:

...

...

Back in those days i didn't have my /another_one partition - that was /boot. (Yes, i remember the days when i had to manually set my HDD geometry.) Ah yes, I'd luckily forgotten about that :-)

And we had to write our own ppp connect scripts for dialing in to the internet. And manually tweak the X11 config to get the proper sync rates for our monitors. And carefully partition so that /boot was below the 1024th HDD sector. And still somehow managed to fit Win3.1, Linux, *and* OS/2 on a 120MB drive.

Ah, those were the days which i'll never miss...

Well, back in my day, we had to make our own CPU from sand. ;-) -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Per Jessen wrote:

stephan beal wrote:

...

On Saturday 29 July 2006 11:56, Per Jessen wrote:

...

12 years with Linux and you never needed a /boot partition? Good going - there was a time when lilo would only work off the first 1024 cylinders of a drive. Back in those days i didn't have my /another_one partition - that was /boot. (Yes, i remember the days when i had to manually set my HDD geometry.)

Ah yes, I'd luckily forgotten about that :-)

I tend to still have the /boot partition - just a bad habit now, of course.

You still need /boot, if you're using LVM. Everything else can be within the LVM. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

richard bown wrote:

Hi back again after a fresh install, not very happy will the "custom" partition, you are only allowed 4 primary partitions ! I to frig it a bit

???? 4 primaries is the max for any PC OS. The custom partitioning will allow you to create those 4 and several logical partitions. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Fri, 2006-07-28 at 12:43 -0400, Bruce Marshall wrote:

On Friday 28 July 2006 12:33, Per Jessen wrote:

...

I think we'll need to understand why you've created all of these partitions? A typical setup might look like this:

hda1 - size 64M, for /boot hda2 - swapspace - e.g. 1.5Gb as you've got hda3 - size 20Gb for / (root) hda4 - the rest for /home

You can certainly create extended partitions for e.g. /var and other things, but your setup seems to be a little off the beaten track.

Maybe you just accepted the partitioners default suggestion when your disk was already partitioned? Personally I would do a reinstall instead of trying to fix it.

Very correct, although I would add that using an extended partition for one or more of the above would allow for expansion.

As proposed he would be out of partitions and would have to devote the entire 160GB among /home and / which is waay more than needed.

I'm inclined to agree about the reinstall, I guessed that when the installer made the suggestion of just formatting hda6 & hda8 it was using the whole of the partition table that I'd been using on the previous install, which was Mandriva 2007. I see now that Suse handles the disk partitions in a totally different way to Mandrake, where all the partitions are sequential, not as a sub-partition of one big one. Yes Basil I know I haven't lost the size of the HD, but as good as, as there is 60 GB that is now unusable. If the Suse installer used a graphical illustration of the partition table as with Mandriva/Mandrake, I would have spotted this. However, I just assumed that it was a clever installer and was using the partition table that already existed.. Foolish assumption that German and French software would be compatible :) So time to reinstall, and find the custom section when it comes to partitioning.. Richard

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On 28/07/06 11:49, richard bown wrote:

<snip> I see now that Suse handles the disk partitions in a totally different way to Mandrake, where all the partitions are sequential, not as a sub-partition of one big one.

What you are seeing with SuSE is what is in the partition table. It is the same thing as you will see if you run fdisk -l. A partition table can have only 4 (primary) parititons in it, and these will always be named /dev/hd?1 through /dev/hd?4. If you have an extended partition, it will always be /dev/hd?4, even if you only have one primary partition on the drive. All logical drives will be /dev/hd?5 and up. This is the way it should be. Suppose, for example, that initially you created a primary partition on /dev/hda, then left some space unallocated on the drive, and finally created an extended partition with a couple of logical drives in it. Under sequential ordering, the partitions would be: primary -- /dev/hda1 extended -- /dev/hda2 logical -- /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda4 Now, if you create a partition in that unallocated space, what will it be labelled? /dev/hda5? It should properly be /dev/hda2, but that is already used. You cannot simply switch the extended partition to /dev/hda3, because now you have to relabel the logical partitions, and that screws up your /etc/fstab. As things are actually done, what you get is: primary -- /dev/hda1 (unallocated space) extended -- /dev/hda4 logical -- /dev/hda5 and /dev/hda6 Now when you create that new partition in the unallocated space, you will create /dev/hda2, and all that is necessary is to create a new line in /etc/fstab -- no mess, no bother. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On 28/07/06 13:10, Jerry Feldman wrote:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 232515 117187528+ 5 Extended

An "oops :-[ " would seem in order here. My faulty memory probably comes from doing things like creating holes in partition tables (ie. creating 3 primaries and an extended partition, then deleting partitions 2 and 3). You would have to know the one person I do this for to understand why :-)

/dev/hda5 12485 95705 41943352+ 83 Linux /dev/hda6 95721 120679 12578863+ 83 Linux /dev/hda7 120679 121683 506016 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/hda8 121683 232513 55857973+ 83 Linux

And your example showed it as /dev/hda2. The rest of you post was good.

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Bruce Marshall wrote:

On Friday 28 July 2006 12:33, Per Jessen wrote:

...

I think we'll need to understand why you've created all of these partitions? A typical setup might look like this:

hda1 - size 64M, for /boot hda2 - swapspace - e.g. 1.5Gb as you've got hda3 - size 20Gb for / (root) hda4 - the rest for /home

You can certainly create extended partitions for e.g. /var and other things, but your setup seems to be a little off the beaten track.

Maybe you just accepted the partitioners default suggestion when your disk was already partitioned? Personally I would do a reinstall instead of trying to fix it.

Very correct, although I would add that using an extended partition for one or more of the above would allow for expansion.

As proposed he would be out of partitions and would have to devote the entire 160GB among /home and / which is waay more than needed.

64 MB for /boot is also a bit much. I have a 15 MB partition for mine and it's barely half full. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:16:28 -0400 James Knott wrote:

64 MB for /boot is also a bit much. I have a 15 MB partition for mine and it's barely half full.

Unfortunately, installation of a new kernel needs 7+ MB free in /boot. It is entirely possible that with a 15 MB partition, any attempt to install a newer kernel version will fail. I do install new kernels, and have found a partition size of 20 MB for /boot to be a "squeaker", even when I made sure to beforehand 'remove' all kernel versions from the system except for the one that is running. mikus -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Mikus Grinbergs wrote:

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:16:28 -0400 James Knott wrote:

...

64 MB for /boot is also a bit much. I have a 15 MB partition for mine and it's barely half full.

Unfortunately, installation of a new kernel needs 7+ MB free in /boot. It is entirely possible that with a 15 MB partition, any attempt to install a newer kernel version will fail. I do install new kernels, and have found a partition size of 20 MB for /boot to be a "squeaker", even when I made sure to beforehand 'remove' all kernel versions from the system except for the one that is running.

Well, this system has already had a kernel update and didn't have a problem with that partition size. The kernel and gz file total only about 3 MB. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Per Jessen wrote:

James Knott wrote:

...

64 MB for /boot is also a bit much. I have a 15 MB partition for mine and it's barely half full.

I guess I picked 64M as a nice round number - certainly 32M or even less would suffice. But in the context of 80Gb being about the smallest disk available (www.pcp.ch), 64M is not even a drop in the ocean :-)

I just used 2 cylinders. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:16:28 -0400 James Knott wrote:

...

64 MB for /boot is also a bit much. I have a 15 MB partition for mine and it's barely half full. I rarely use /boot at all, and simply use the directory in the root file system. There are pros and cons to /boot. In the days when hard drives were getting bigger, but LILO had the restriction where the kernel must be in a cylinder < 1024, a /boot partition was very necessary to keep it in the first 1024. This is no longer necessary, especially with GRUB.

But, there is another good reason for /boot to be separate, and that is that it is less prone to errors, especially if you keep it unmounted, even in the case of a failing hard drive you may still be able to boot.

Another reason is LVM. /boot cannot be on a LVM partition. -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Just a couple of comments on resizing partitions. I tend to prefer to use qtparted from a standalone KNoppix CD, but the SuSE partitioner will allow for resize. However, there are some cases where the partitioner will resize the physical partition and not the file system. In this case you can use resize_reiserfs(8) or resize2fs(8) once you have expanded the partition. I'm not sure if the SuSE partitioner will call the appropriate file system resizer or not, but you can always run it by hand. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com