Ubuntu 8.10 Partitions (Suggestions)

[freakrz]

Hi,

I am installing a fresh copy of ubuntu 8.10 64bit version on my laptop, i 'd like to set up partitions for security and better boot options. i m looking for suggestions on them. I have 250GB to spare and currently my thoughts on the partition config are

/boot -512 MB- 1GB
/ -10 GB
/home -200 GB
/var -5 GB
/opt -5 GB
/tmp -5 GB
/usr -5 GB

Total = 231 GB

i did not include a swap partition in the above table,i am not sure if i should have a swap partition,since my phy memory is 4GB and i would'nt be using too much of memory consuming apps,but is it recommended to have a swap,should i allocate twice the amount of mem (8GB ) for swap....?

Let me know what you think...! i m not sure if i should be assigning a lot to /opt and /usr 5GB i m just assuming tht the software i install gets located in those directories , also /var is 5GB since i was planning to put up a firewall, CLAMAV and also Snort in the future.....! give me suggestions and ideas on it....!

Also i want to have my /home partition encrypted,would it be possible and can i do it while installation...?

Thank You,
Frk

[stef4001]

If you never want to setup e apache server or everything ells that's not in permissions for home directory than it's ok if not I would give your swap 2Gb and de rest to / (root) includes also Home directory "everything"
resume I say that its e bath idea also the directory for your programs is normally in the usr/bin file or bins so gif your system everything and if its not in of you can mount e other drive.

[stef4001]

sorry for my English I'm just learning

[bigtomrodney]

You might be a bit generous with /opt , /var and /usr. In fact unless you have special need you don't have to put them on their own paritions at all. I would double /tmp though if you have the space. If you go ripping DVDs or working on large files it will come in handy. It's always good to keep /tmp seperate for security reasons and to avoid / (root) filling up.

As for swap - I wouldn't bother. Swap really doesn't do much these days at all. If 4GB isn't enough, RAM is cheap enough that you can add more. Don't get me wrong now, 4GB should be enough for almost anyone unless you're running a SQL server or something. The benefit of swap really isn't worth it so if you need extra memory it's far more worthwhile to buy more RAM than have your disk grinding and crunching. Also as a side note, the old 'double your RAM' calculation doesn't really apply anymore. After about 256MB of RAM it just doesn't cut it and we're back to the same argument as above.

On the encryption question, you can encrypt your home partition but you need to use the Alternate CD to install. The livecd won't support this until 9.04.

[D-cat]

My personal opinion:

The only directory that would be bennificial to a home user to mount on a separate partition is /home. That isolates your personal data in the event that a future upgrade bombs.

Unless you're doing something excessive, a complete system and programs should fit on a 20G root part, though if you feel you want to keep things roomy for the future, you can make it larger.

On the subject of a swap partition, I'm sort of split. A swap is sort of a buffer if you run out of physical ram. With 4G of ram, this is not likely to happen, but if it does (say while you're working with a 9GB DVD image or something), it's the one thing that can kill a linux session in spectacular fashion. If this is something you'll never do, then don't bother. If it is, I agree you should keep it a 2GB or less.

Give the rest to your /home mounted partition.

AFA encryption, I don't specifically know how to do that, but I found this HOW-TO on linux disk encryption that may be of use to you.

[freakrz]

That was so helpful.....!

I would not be doing DVD Ripping or other stuff on the laptop, but i am looking to work on some music editing for now(Like Hydrogen/Audacity/Ardour). so i am guessing there should be sufficient memory for the apps i run.....! also i ll throw in a 2gb swap ..just in case...!

also i ll double the /tmp folder nd have it separate for security reasons....!

so i guess it will be
/boot - 512Mb
/ - 18 GB
/home -200GB
/tmp - 10GB
swap -2GB

so tht wud be about 230.5Gb ....!

does it matter having the /var in a different partition , since they contain the log files and would it be of any use to place it in a diff part...?

[bigtomrodney]

Logfiles are generally rotated automatically anyway, so no need for a seperate partition there. For swap, if you're sure you want to have it you can set it up then comment it out of /etc/fstab so that it isn't used. If you ever find yourself wishing you had it you can uncomment it. The swapon and swapoff commands will let you easily manage it anyway. Still don't think it's necessary anymore though

There was a thread recently somewhere on root size. It was universally decided that you would almost never use more than 8-10GB and particularly if /tmp is seperate. Then again everyone's usage is different so as long as you're happy that you aren't cutting any corners, it never hurts to have too much

[coopstah13]

i agree with d-cat on not having many separate partitions.
I personally only have 3 partitions
/
/home
swap

I don't see any reason to partition off /usr ever really
/var on a separate partition is especially useful when you are running a server and you don't want it to stop working if the logs take up too much space, the same goes for /tmp being a separate partition if you have a lot of temporary files, you don't want to crash your system if you fill up your / with them
/boot on separate partition is a safe way to keep your system bootable in case something happens to / partition, but usually you can recover from this without having /boot separate, reinstalling a linux system is fairly simple, especially with /home on a separate partition, you won't even lose your desktop settings or anything, you can also always boot a livecd to recover data in case of system crash

this is just my 2 cents on the subject

[zba78]

I also agree that for most 2 or 3 partitions are enough (depending on if you bother with swap or not).

Unless you have some specific needs that will require a more complicated setup I'd recommend just going for a 20GB / and the rest as /home

I personally have an extra partition onto which I place virtualbox's virtual disk image (VDI) for WinXP but that's just my specific need.