Totally Confused About Partitions

[Martin Dintzis]

I'm a complete newbe who is struggling with the most basic part of Linux. I don't understand how to set up the partitions in the install program. I've read as much as I can about partitions, but I am still totally confused about what to do.

I want one partition for the Linux OS and at least two partitions just for data.


Question 1:
Should I make the bootable partition for the Linux OS an extended partition or just a plain primary partition?


Question 2
Should I make the non-boot partitions, which are for data only, primary partitions that are completely independent of the one used for the OS? Or should I create them from within the extended partition?


Question 3:
Am I supposed to just let the install program create the swap file? Or should I create the swap file before running the install? Does the swap file count as a partition all by itself?

Question 4:
You are always prompted to choose a mount point for the bootable partition. What exactly is the mount point? Should you always choose the root (/) as the mount point?



I'd appreciate any help that you can give me.

Thanks.

[daark.child]

1. Linux does not care whether its installed on a primary or logical partition
2. Again, you can make them primary or logical
3. Its probably best to create swap space during install time. This will save you the time and effort that you would spend manually creating it yourself and creating entries for it in /etc/fstab
4. The mount point for the main installation is / (root) (I don't know why you call it bootable because it does not have to be bootable if you have a separate /boot partition)

[oz]

The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) offers a pretty good primer on partitioning under Linux, too:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/

Hope you have fun with Linux!