partitions and...?

[bigvoo]

In the past, i never needed to partition, because i don't dual boot, so i just let live cd's write over what's there...well now i want to install puppy on the comp that now has xubunutu on it, I tried to install from live cd "using whole disc" and it doesn't work, some part of xubunutu is still in the boot up ( somehow ). my partition questoin is ( and i havnt found an answer reading other posts) when you talk about "grub" "swap" and such, are these completely different partitions on the disc, or are the partitions (within) the larger partition ? hope that makes sense, I mean in g-parted do you make the swap and grub within the large partition OR do you shrink that one down and make seperate partitions out side it...thanks for any help.

[Pipps]

Grub is an application which controls the boot process. In a multi-partion Linux system, Grub would be stored on the '/boot' partition. "Swap' is a separate partition in its own right. It should usually be twice the size of the RAM of your system, although 2GB is usually the max for OS purposes. In a multi-partition system, Swap would usually be a separately defined 2GB partition.

You might wish to consider something along the lines of the following:

Partition 1: 100MB for a mount-point at '/boot'
Partition 2: 2GB for a mount-point at 'swap'
Partition 3: All remaining disc space, for a mount point at '/home'.

Partitioning the average Linux system any further than that is simply overkill and in no way beneficial or realistic for the average user. My own local had disc is partitioned exactly as the above.

Good luck!

[Jonathan183]

In the past, i never needed to partition, because i don't dual boot, so i just let live cd's write over what's there...well now i want to install puppy on the comp that now has xubunutu on it, I tried to install from live cd "using whole disc" and it doesn't work, some part of xubunutu is still in the boot up ( somehow ). my partition questoin is ( and i havnt found an answer reading other posts) when you talk about "grub" "swap" and such, are these completely different partitions on the disc, or are the partitions (within) the larger partition ? hope that makes sense, I mean in g-parted do you make the swap and grub within the large partition OR do you shrink that one down and make seperate partitions out side it...thanks for any help.

Typical partitions
root / is required for all installations
swap is usually a separate partition (if you need it)
Thats all you need ... you can optionally create separate partitions for
/home
/boot
/var
/tmp

Grub is the bootloader and has two parts ... one that usually sits in the MBR of the first hard drive of the system and a stage 1.5 or stage 2 which sits in /boot/grub together with the menu.lst (or grub.conf) file you use to create a boot menu.
You would not create a grub partition although you may create a /boot partition ...

You might wish to consider something along the lines of the following:

Partition 1: 100MB for a mount-point at '/boot'
Partition 2: 2GB for a mount-point at 'swap'
Partition 3: All remaining disc space, for a mount point at '/home'.

This needs a root partition also ...

... if you post

fdisk -l
mount

output we can see partition structure and how you have it mounted.

[bigvoo]

thanxs for the replies, Im typing this from the puppy live cd, it is working really well, and xubuntu has been a little flakey, so im going to try this install over again...I guess this live cd won't write over xubuntu, so dohow do i wipe xubuntu off the drive first ? I have never done this. this is just a single boot computer running xubuntu only. the directions on the puppy site didn't work in my situation, i guess they figure most people will be installing puppy over windows. thanks again...

[Jonathan183]

Check fdisk -l output. If you want to wipe the partition table and start again (you will loose all data) then use dd command. Lets say output of fdisk command has /dev/sda1 ... /dev/sda2 etc then type

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

If however you have data you want to save then it is better to select individual partitions to remove, I suggest you post the fdisk -l output.

[computerophil]

Puppy doesn't need much place. So you easily can have both distributions paralell.
I recommend you to start Puppy LiveCD.
Enter GParted and there you see easyly how the harddisk is partitioned and formated.

Probably you have allready a swap because you have allready another Linux Distribution on the Computer. Both Distributions can use the same Swap-Partition.
Also a seperate Bootpartition isn't necessary you can use the first Partition never mind if it is annother Linux or Windows.
Most People let Grub (the bootloader) install to MBR so you don't have to think about that.
So you need just one more partition ext3 formated which shoudn't be less than 1GB for Puppy but if you can give it 3GB it will be happy.
With GParted you see how much unused space there is on the other Linux Partition. You can snipp something for a new distribution away.
Puppy has an installer and there are also detailed manuals so you shoudn't have any problems with it.

[rokytnji]

Just to enhance on what Phil has said because at one time I had Puppy and Xubuntu as a dual boot on a Lappy. I had to copy Puppies /boot/grub/menu lst. entry over into Xubuntus /boot/grub/menu lst. as Xubuntu did not identify Puppy correctly in its /boot/grub/menu lst.

If you are not going to dualboot disregard above Statement. Good Luck.