Partitions- A Classic Guide to Partitioning Your Linux System

partitions.txt - how to create partitions on linux, how to create file
systems, descriptions of different standard file systems, and information
related to partitions, formatting, file systems, and disk operations.
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Linux Partitioning Information
---------------------------------------

A swap partition -- Swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. If 
     your computer has 16 MB of RAM or less, you must create a swap partition. 
     Even if you have more memory, a swap partition is still recommended. The 
     minimum size of your swap partition should be equal to your computer's
      RAM, or 16 MB (whichever is larger). 

A root partition -- The root partition is where / (the root directory)
resides. 
     It only needs to contain things necessary to boot your system, as well as 
     system configuration files. A root partition of 50 MB to 80 MB works well 
     for most systems. 

     [Intel Systems: Don't forget the LILO constraints] 

A /usr partition -- The /usr partition is where much of the software on a Red 
     Hat Linux system resides. This partition should be between 200 MB and 500 
     MB, depending on how many packages you plan to install. If at all 
     possible, try to be generous with the /usr partition. Any RPM-based 
     packages you install later will (in general) use more space from /usr
     than from any other partition. 

A /home partition -- This is where users' home directories go; the size of 
     /home depends on how many users you plan to have on your Red Hat Linux 
     system and what they might store in their home directories. 

A /usr/local partition -- Traditionally, /usr/local has been used to hold 
     things you wish to keep separate from the rest of your Red Hat Linux 
     system, such as software that is not available as an RPM package. The
size 
     depends on the amount of software you anticipate putting on your system. 

A /usr/src partition -- There are two things that are stored in /usr/src on a 
     Red Hat Linux system: 

     Linux Kernel Sources -- The complete sources for the Linux kernel are 
          stored here, and new kernels are built here. 

     Sources For RPM-Based Packages -- If a source package file (aka SRPM) is 
          installed, the files are stored here.  Note that, unless specified 
          otherwise, any packages built also use a build directory located
here. 

     Again, the size of this partition would depend on the amount of software 
     you anticipate building. 

A /tmp partition -- As the name implies, the /tmp partition is for temporary 
     files. Creating a partition dedicated to /tmp is a good idea for larger, 
     multiuser systems or network server machines. The reason is that many 
     active users can fill the root partition (/), which is where /tmp is 
     located. It's not necessary to dedicate a partition to /tmp on
single-user
     workstations. 

Creating Partitions with fdisk
---------------------------------------
fdisk or cfdisk is used to create partitions for linux.  any distribution that
does not use the python installer will probably require you to use disk or
cfdisk to create your linux partitions prior to installation.

example: To create a new partition on a second harddrive because you just
added a
second IDE drive to your computer...

  1) fdisk /dev/hdb
  2) 'n' for new partition
  3) use default start and end if you want the entire drive
  4) 'w' for write the new partition

Creating a File System on the new partition
---------------------------------------
Now it is necessary to make a file system on the new partition.  This is like
formatting the drive in msdos.  You may do _one_ of the following:

  mke2fs /dev/hdab1 <- make a basic ext2 filesystem

  mkfs.ext3 -b 4096 /dev/hdb1  <- an example that makes a new ext3 journaling
                                  file system with block size 4096

Creating a Backup of your Linux System...
---------------------------------------
see: conventional_backup.txt

A couple ways to format a floppy
---------------------------------------

  fdformat /dev/fd0H1440

  mkfs -c -t ext2 /dev/fd0 

Now you can check a floppy disk for bad sectors / blocks with this command:

  badblocks /dev/fd01440 1440