HD partitioning

**Chris H** · 04-14-2004

Will soon get my grubbies on a 40Gb HD to use to my hearts content for all things penguiny.

Need some help on partitioning though.

Set up is one hd hda running XP, using mbr for LILO and will be swapping the 8Gb slackware hdb for the shiny new 40Gb one.

How should I set it up as hdb. I'll be using Slackware but will want to install Gentoo and Debian just for the hell of it.

Any suggestions on partitions?

Ta.

**Giro** · 04-14-2004

I would use only one /boot partition and use the same kernel/s for all the distro's. Use one swap partition and just have seperate / partitions you could also have /home on its own partition and also share that between distros then no matter what distro you are using you will have your files.

**Chris H** · 04-14-2004

Sounds good Giro but how will that work out?

<bit lost here

>

**Giro** · 04-14-2004

So hda is running WindowsXP and your putting a new 40Gb in as slave(hdb) replacing a 9Gb thats already in there if this is correct I would do something like this (Obviousely you will want to make the sizes what you think is best).

Code:

hdb1 -> /boot -> 200Mb
hdb2 -> SWAP -> 300Mb
hdb3 -> /home -> 1Gb
hdb5 -> / -> 5Gb &#40;Use for Gentoo so when installing and configuring the system &#40;fstab etc..&#41; and boot manager use this as root&#41;
hdb6 -> / -> 5Gb &#40;Use for Debian same as above&#41;
hdb7 -> / -> 5Gb &#40;Use for Slackware same as 2 above&#41;

And so on untill you have all the distro done. With Lilo something like (It might be a bit off I havent used Lilo for a while)

Code:

image = /boot/bzImage
    lable=Gentoo
    read-only
    ammend = "root=/dev/hdb5"

image = /boot/bzImage
    lable=Debian
    read-only
    ammend = "root=/dev/hdb6"

image = /boot/bzImage
    lable=Debian
    read-only
    ammend = "root=/dev/hdb7"

I would use Grub which i think would be a better BM you could just do this for it.

Code:

default 0
timeout 20
splashimage=&#40;hd1,0&#41;/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo
root &#40;hd1,0&#41;
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hdb5

title=Debian
root &#40;hd1,0&#41;
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hdb6

title=Slackware
root &#40;hd1,0&#41;
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/hdb7

And the fstab would be the same for all distro's just change the / partition number to the correct number for that disto like Debian would be.

Code:

/dev/hdb1 /boot ext2 noauto 0 1
/dev/hdb2 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdb6 / ext2 noatime 0 2
/dev/hdb3 /home noatime 0 2

And you would just copy that and change hdb6 to hdb5 for Gentoo's fstab. Now this should really work as easy as that but it might need a little tweaking since i have never done this

**Chris H** · 04-14-2004

Cheers Giro. That was just what I wanted!!!!!!!!

**lordnothing** · 04-16-2004

i would suggest using a gentoo kernel as they are patched so that you can compile programs and do other things at the same time with minimal slowdown...

gentoo has a myriad of kernel patchsets... they should all be explained in the gentoo docs....

**Chris H** · 04-18-2004

Hmm, 3 tries at installing Gentoo today. Alll end up with fatal errors when trying to install lilo or grub.

Bah. Back to Slackware methinks.

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