I think the only reason it wanted /boot to be ext2 or ext3 was it was too small for journaling. I think there was a thread some time back about some issues with reiserfs and /boot partition. Since I removed my /boot partition, I have only reiserfs now. I haven't tried the other journeling fs's though. Babu --- Mojojojo wrote:

...

No - IIRC, the only real reason for a boot

On Thursday 20 June 2002 11:46, Ben Jones wrote: partition, was to ensure it

...

was below the 1024th cylinder. Older bios/lilo constraints meant you couldn't boot from a partition beyond this. SuSE (rightly) assumes that many of their users will dual-boot, so having a ~20meg partiton made sense. Newer pc's do not have the same restriction, so it is no longer there by default. I still have one out of habit... don't think there's any real benefit anymore though.

I somewhat remember that if I used '/' and '/home' with reiserfs, than I better used '/boot' with ext2. Is this still valid for SuSE 8.0?

I put my '/boot' partition at the very end of the hd (hda4).

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On Fri, 2002-06-21 at 02:21, Jerry Feldman wrote:

There are some pros and cons. For most home installations, setting up a single partition may suffice. However, having a separate /var and /home partition makes sense because they are rlatively high use (read and write). /var, mainly because of logs, queues, etc. /home because of user usage.

Like Jerry says, there are pros and cons. If you've got enough hard disk space and don't mind the risk that you'll have to do a reinstall to make major changes, you'll get the most security with multiple partitions on your hard disk. You want to keep / very small with no writing activity - that reduces the chance of screwing up the kernel and keeps it isolated from root attacks. Most writing activity takes place in /tmp and /var, so those should be isolated. There is some writing activity in /home, but another good reason to keep it isolated is that if your system crashes and is beyond repair, you at least want to mount /home with a rescue system and recover the data before doing a total reinstall. Most applications and utilities are in /usr and /opt. With that introduction, the following output of "df" shows how I've got my 20 gigabyte hard drive partitioned: bob@sonic:~> df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hda5 197M 73M 114M 39% / /dev/hda3 38M 8.7M 27M 24% /boot /dev/hda6 3.0G 1.2G 1.6G 40% /home /dev/hda9 3.9G 835M 2.9G 22% /opt /dev/hda8 1011M 179M 781M 19% /tmp /dev/hda10 8.0G 2.5G 5.1G 33% /usr /dev/hda7 486M 112M 349M 25% /var shmfs 62M 0 61M 0% /dev/shm The above doesn't show /dev/hda1, which is Windows, because it's not mounted. It also doesn't show the swap partition, which is 400 megabytes - you should install that near the beginning of the drive for best performance. /dev/shm is a virtual partition - you don't install that, or worry about it at all. For safety, I'd suggest formatting /, /boot, and /home as ext3. Everything else can be whatever you like (reiserfs, XFS, etc). Once you've installed the above partitions, you can't really change their size with doing a total reinstall, so be sure you've allowed enough space on each partition for all your purposes. If you do a lot of logging, /var will fill up fast (though you can delete logs if you like). You don't want any partition to be more than 80% full, since Linux needs space for defragmenting itself. Hope somebody finds this useful. - Robert Storey

I know they say swap should be first in the partitions, but whenever I put that first, the machine won't boot. On my personal non-networked laptop (hence the reason for no /home partition) I always have to do: /dev/hda1 /boot 20M /dev/hda2 /swap 800M /dev/hda3 /var 500M /dev/hda4 / 6G /dev/hda5 /windows 6G Because the following setup never works: /dev/hda1 /swap 800M /dev/hda2 /boot 20M /dev/hda3 /var 500M /dev/hda4 / 6G /dev/hda5 /windows 6G Is this a result of having a dual boot, with LILO residing in the MBR? Or is having to put /boot first some kind of configuration error on my part that causes this abnormality? Anyway, it doesn't bother me much having to do it this way, but I thought that if others run into this problem a quick explaination might help them to not run into the same problems I did (i.e. not being able to boot with /swap on /dev/hda1). : -----Original Message----- : From: Mojojojo [mailto:mojojoj0@boleh.com] : Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 10:57 PM : To: suse-linux-e@suse.com : Subject: Re: [SLE] is separate /boot partition necessary SuSE 8.0 : : : On Friday 21 June 2002 08:04, Robert Storey wrote: : > bob@sonic:~> df -h : > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on : > /dev/hda5 197M 73M 114M 39% / : > /dev/hda3 38M 8.7M 27M 24% /boot : > /dev/hda6 3.0G 1.2G 1.6G 40% /home : > /dev/hda9 3.9G 835M 2.9G 22% /opt : > /dev/hda8 1011M 179M 781M 19% /tmp : > /dev/hda10 8.0G 2.5G 5.1G 33% /usr : > /dev/hda7 486M 112M 349M 25% /var : > shmfs 62M 0 61M 0% /dev/shm : > : > : > The above doesn't show /dev/hda1, which is Windows, because it's not : > mounted. It also doesn't show the swap partition, which is 400 megabytes : > - you should install that near the beginning of the drive for best : > performance. /dev/shm is a virtual partition - you don't install that, : > or worry about it at all. : : If you use windows just to complement linux, why not install swap : on the very : first partition. : : Right now... Mine: : /hda1 -- swap : /hda2 -- / : /hda3 -- /home : /hda4 -- /boot : : If /boot wasn't necesary, you can do this: : /hda1 -- swap : /hda2 -- / : /hda3 -- /home : /hda4 -- WINDOWS <--- : : if your hda4 is extended partition, put it on hda3 : /hda1 -- swap : /hda2 -- / : /hda3 -- WINDOWS <---- : /hda4 -- extended : /hda5 -- /home : /hda6 -- /var : /hda7 -- /boot : : Note: To others wonder why this important, harddrive speed is not : linear, it's : faster at the inner part. : : : : : : : : : -- : To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com : For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com : : Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com : :

WRT: Swap. I try to pout my swap adjacent to the partition with the most activity. Using your layout, I would probably do something like: /dev/hda1 /boot 20M /dev/hda2 /var 500M /dev/hda3 /swap 800M /dev/hda4 / 6G /dev/hda5 /windows 6G Why, You want to reduce head movement. /var is a very active partition because of all the log and spool files. In your configuration, the users' directories are in root. (and, I probably would not use a /boot at all and I would probably make everything as logical partitions, but that's just some personal preference. On 21 Jun 2002 at 6:27, Jeric wrote:

I know they say swap should be first in the partitions, but whenever I put that first, the machine won't boot. On my personal non-networked laptop (hence the reason for no /home partition) I always have to do:

-- Jerry Feldman Enterprise Systems Group Hewlett-Packard Company 200 Forest Street MRO1-3/F1 Marlboro, Ma. 01752 508-467-4315 http://www.testdrive.compaq.com/linux/

Greetings list, I have Windows XP Professional and SuSE Linux Professional, 8.0 installed on the same PC: Architecture: i386 Boot Architecture: lilo CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.60GHz Memory: DDR 128 / 30GB I searched the SuSE support database myself before attempting the installation of both OSes on my PC and found the following information in regard to the installation of Windows XP and SuSE Linux on the same PC. (This is the only trustworthy information that I could find to reference). Using the following information I have installed both OSes and have had no problems to speak of. --------------------------------------------- Applies to: SuSE Linux 7.0 + (I am using 8.0 professional) Situation: You want to run Linux and Windows XP on the same computer. Procedure: Linux on a separate hard disk You can simply install Linux on the free hard disk and configure the bootloader. Linux on the same hard disk as Windows: First of all you must make room for Linux. Computers with preinstalled Windows XP usually employ the NTFS file system Version 2. Unfortunately, there is no documentation available about this file system at the moment, so currently Linux cannot read or write in NTFS. Resizing the partition with YaST2's Windows resizer is not possible. You may use either a commercial partitioning program or reformat the disk, after which you can install SuSE Linux and subsequently Windows XP. Please note that computers with preinstalled XP may have a separate partition containing recovery data. This partition must not be deleted in any case! --First create a primary FAT32 partition for Windows. This can be done with SuSE's installation program. Leave the rest of the disk free. If you also use an extended partition, it should occupy the remaining disk space. Please notice that some laptops require a special partition that must not be deleted. --Install SuSE Linux behind the primary partition and copy the bootloader LILO to a floppy disk. --Install Windows XP on the primary partition. --For more information on the further configuration of the bootloader check the article "Linux and Windows NT" [http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/nt.html] Further information on Linux and NTFS is available at "Linux NTFS Project" [http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/] ------------------------------------------- Note that the size of the partitions here are only my 'guesstimates' in light of my own hardware/software. I assigned 10GB for Windows (FAT32) and I used the minimul for a boot partition (why, I don't know to be honest... but it seemed to ask for a boot partion of a size up to 1024. So that is what I gave it. I hope that someone is able to elaborate on that, 'cause I don't know anything about that. It seems that those with newer PC's may not even need to create a boot partition lower than 1024 (0 through 1024, or less). I do not know, but I created one during my own installation/reformat just in case. I have had no problems--though I now have to boot off of a floppy every time that I boot up. To be clear, windows is my first partition. I had to config my BIOS to boot off of floppy first, then another drive in order to utilize LILO. I offer this information in hope that it may benefit someone, or inspire some constructive thinking. At the least, perhaps someone will post some helpful information concerning this topic. This is my fist post, so, be gentle on me. :) BTW -- I've found more information off of the lists that I have subscribed to than from any other resource... you all are a great help for those seeking knowledge and support - thanks. Best regards, Ron Boyer ============================================= On Fri, 2002-06-21 at 13:08, babu walad wrote:

I think the MBR is always the first partition so if you make swap the first partition you are probable going to have problems.

Making / (with no separate /boot) or /boot the first partition should work. It does for me.

Babu

--- Jeric wrote:

...

I know they say swap should be first in the partitions, but whenever I put that first, the machine won't boot. On my personal non-networked laptop (hence the reason for no /home partition) I always have to do:

/dev/hda1 /boot 20M /dev/hda2 /swap 800M /dev/hda3 /var 500M /dev/hda4 / 6G /dev/hda5 /windows 6G

Because the following setup never works:

/dev/hda1 /swap 800M /dev/hda2 /boot 20M /dev/hda3 /var 500M /dev/hda4 / 6G /dev/hda5 /windows 6G

Is this a result of having a dual boot, with LILO residing in the MBR? Or is having to put /boot first some kind of configuration error on my part that causes this abnormality? Anyway, it doesn't bother me much having to do it this way, but I thought that if others run into this problem a quick explaination might help them to not run into the same problems I did (i.e. not being able to boot with /swap on /dev/hda1).

: -----Original Message----- : From: Mojojojo [mailto:mojojoj0@boleh.com] : Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 10:57 PM : To: suse-linux-e@suse.com : Subject: Re: [SLE] is separate /boot partition necessary SuSE 8.0 : : : On Friday 21 June 2002 08:04, Robert Storey wrote: : > bob@sonic:~> df -h : > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on : > /dev/hda5 197M 73M 114M 39% / : > /dev/hda3 38M 8.7M 27M 24% /boot : > /dev/hda6 3.0G 1.2G 1.6G 40% /home : > /dev/hda9 3.9G 835M 2.9G 22% /opt : > /dev/hda8 1011M 179M 781M 19% /tmp : > /dev/hda10 8.0G 2.5G 5.1G 33% /usr : > /dev/hda7 486M 112M 349M 25% /var : > shmfs 62M 0 61M 0% /dev/shm : > : > : > The above doesn't show /dev/hda1, which is Windows, because it's not : > mounted. It also doesn't show the swap partition, which is 400 megabytes : > - you should install that near the beginning of the drive for best : > performance. /dev/shm is a virtual partition - you don't install that, : > or worry about it at all. : : If you use windows just to complement linux, why not install swap : on the very : first partition. : : Right now... Mine: : /hda1 -- swap : /hda2 -- / : /hda3 -- /home : /hda4 -- /boot : : If /boot wasn't necesary, you can do this: : /hda1 -- swap : /hda2 -- / : /hda3 -- /home : /hda4 -- WINDOWS <--- : : if your hda4 is extended partition, put it on hda3 : /hda1 -- swap : /hda2 -- / : /hda3 -- WINDOWS <---- : /hda4 -- extended : /hda5 -- /home : /hda6 -- /var : /hda7 -- /boot : : Note: To others wonder why this important, harddrive speed is not : linear, it's : faster at the inner part. : :

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