Partition sizes

[Peach]

What size of partition is recommended for Mandrake 8?

- I've made a 500MB partition with pqmagic with a 200MB swap but that didn't look enough when I went to install it so I quit - I don't intend on keeping a massive amount of data in Linux, couple of hundred meg at most. Should 2GB do it? And what about the swap?

Cheers :)

[ybw]

Depends what you want to do really.

I have an old cyrix 300 running Slackware 7.1 on a ~650mb HDD. Once I have install the base linux system, the network components and all the compiler gunf, then I have around 300mb free IIRC, and that's with a 50mb swap partition(n0rty).

With regards to swap sizes :)
It's recommended that you set it to 2.5x your RAM size, so: 64mb x 2.5 = 50mb :O, well if I had the space... ;)

More the merrier anyway, so if HDD space isn't an issue, go for the 2gb :)

Andy

[aef]

I'll support what ybw says - it dpends on how much stuff you install, really. You may wish you make a separate /boot partition (20 meg or so in the first 2GB of the disk) to avoid any possible LILO problems.

AEF

[Space~GhOst~]

I've only just installed Mandrake 8, literally ;)

I've got 512MB's of RAM... and I figured a 1GB swap partition would be a little excessive... So I made my Swap 512MB, is this ok?

[aef]

You should survive with 512MB RAM and 512MB swap :)

You should always have some swap (for efficiency), the 2x rule is really about having as much swap as you can use. Any more than about 2x your RAM, and your machine is likely to br grinding to a halt by the time you use it all anyway.

You can have multiple swap partitions if you want, too.

AEF

[Ironheart]

I've got a 6Gb drive, and have a 4/2 split for Windows/Mandrake. Of the 2Gb set aside for Linux, I have 128Mb for the swap, 250Mb-300Mb for /home (I forget the exact number) and the rest for /.

[Peach]

oh b*llocks...was gonna set off pqmagic getting me 2GB set up b4 work and be ready to install when I got back. I forgot :/ Guess it'll wait.

btw I have 256MB of RAM so I'll bump the swap up to 512 too.

Cheers for the tips :)

[Ironheart]

With that much physical memory you won't need that much virtual memory (if it ever gets touched at all). The sites I have seen say you should use the approximate figure of twice your RAM (so 32 -> 64, 64 -> 128) up to 128MB which is the most anyone would ever need. So you can go and stick 512Mb for your /swap but imho it would be a complete waste of drive space.

[aef]

Actually, you should always have some swap space, irrespective of how much physical memory you have, for reasons I outlined in a post in the 'Missing 110megs of RAM' (or something like that) thread.

2x RAM is pretty much the most (probably more than) you can sensibly use without your machine grinding to a halt, and this is the recommended figure based on the principle that disk is cheap and memory is expensive.

AEF