| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Enkidu" |
| Date: |
30 Jul 2004 06:52:58 PM |
| Object: |
Ping: Mark Bilbo (Linux) |
If you have a moment . . .
I've selected SuSE 9.1 (because fewer people complained about it) as my
first serious attempt at moving toward Linux. It installed, I guess,
but it wouldn't boot. I don't know why, but I ended up with a
re-partitioned drive. There was a 22GB Windows partition, a 14.5GB
Linux partition, a 500MB Linux swap partion, and a 39MB partition at the
front of the drive that I can only assume was used by GRUB.
I've been able to remove the two Linux partiotion and extend the Windows
partition into them, and restore the Windows boot loader, but I don't
know how to recover the 39MB section at the front of the drive.
I'd like to restore the system to it's one partition and try to install
the SuSE again.
Is there a tool that will stick the this little fragment back on the
main partition? I don't own Partition Magic, but I've never heard
anything bad about it. Would it help prepare my system for an install
of the SuSE anyway, and I should just fork over and buy it?
Thanks in advance.
--
Enkidu
aa 2165
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without
having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of
it too?"
--Douglas Adams
Now playing . . .
Charlatans - You`re So Pretty - We`re So Pr
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| User: "Enkidu" |
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| Title: Re: Ping: Mark Bilbo (Linux) |
30 Jul 2004 06:56:06 PM |
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Enkidu wrote:
If you have a moment . . .
I've selected SuSE 9.1 (because fewer people complained about it) as my
first serious attempt at moving toward Linux. It installed, I guess,
but it wouldn't boot. I don't know why, but I ended up with a
re-partitioned drive.
Let me re-phrase that. "I don't know why the SuSE wouldn't boot, so
here I am with a re-partitioned drive." I do know why the drive is
partitioned!--
Enkidu
aa 2165
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without
having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of
it too?"
--Douglas Adams
Now playing . . .
Charlatans - You`re So Pretty - We`re So Pr
.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
|
| Title: Re: Ping: Mark Bilbo (Linux) |
31 Jul 2004 09:45:07 AM |
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On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 16:52:58 -0700 in episode
<lbBOc.19043$mg6.10764@fed1read02> we saw our hero Enkidu
<enkidu@leaddogs.org>:
I don't know why, but I ended up with a re-partitioned
drive. There was a 22GB Windows partition, a 14.5GB Linux partition, a
500MB Linux swap partion, and a 39MB partition at the front of the drive
that I can only assume was used by GRUB.
It rather bothers me you don't know why it was partitioned. But I'm
guessing the SuSE installer did the partitioning. Usually installers have
the option for you to do it yourself if you want or allow the installer to
do it. I'm assuming you allowed the installer to do the partitioning (even
if maybe you didn't intend to?).
Either way, the partitioning makes sense more or less. Usually at the
minimum, you get a boot partition, a root partition, and a swap partition.
Looks like boot is the 39M, root is the 14.5G, and swap is the, well, swap
(the 500M).
The boot partition would have the Grub files as well as the files Linux
needs to boot.
I've been able to remove the two Linux partiotion and extend the Windows
partition into them, and restore the Windows boot loader, but I don't know
how to recover the 39MB section at the front of the drive.
If the problem was that SuSE just wouldn't boot, you don't actually need
to remove the partitions inorder to start over. You can if you want but
it's not actually necessary.
I'd like to restore the system to it's one partition and try to install
the SuSE again.
Is there a tool that will stick the this little fragment back on the
main partition? I don't own Partition Magic, but I've never heard
anything bad about it. Would it help prepare my system for an install
of the SuSE anyway, and I should just fork over and buy it?
You probably know as much as I do about Partition Magic. It's been some
years since I bothered with Windows programs (my last Windows were 98 and
NT, I'm out of date <g>). But I also have heard nothing but good things
about it. I don't think it would be a waste if you bought it. Might come
in handy (it's one of those kinds of tools you may never need but if you
need it, you *really* need it <g>).
First, though, I'd suggest checking the SuSE manual (that is if you bought
a boxed set with a manual, you didn't say) and check on how it handles
partitioning. I haven't seen a SuSE past about 7.2 so I'm not sure what
all options Yast has these days. I'm betting, though, there's a "expert"
something or other that will enable you to control the partitioning
yourself if that's important to you.
The partitions the installer gave you look generally correct to me. You'll
need at minimum:
/boot
/
swap
"/boot" is usually at the front and is pretty small. Mine is 16M and only
about half used (about 8.5M used on it). 39M is kind of "big" for a boot
partition but, well, it's not a *lot of space taken up.
"/" is the root partition and generally the biggest. Your programs and
data all live there.
"swap" is usually about 2.5 times your memory. Like if you have 256M of
memory, swap should be about 640M. If you figure you'll upgrade your
memory any time soon, figuring your swap space on what you think your
memory will be isn't going to hurt. Extra swap doesn't necessarily help
but doesn't really hurt either.
(And, actually, I put 2G of swap on my machine expecting to go to 768M
soon, I've only got 512M memory at present but still am only using about
12% of my swap. The 2.5 times "rule of thumb" may be excessive itself.)
I don't know I'd worry about having that old boot partition hanging
around. Meaning you don't really *need to kill it before trying to
reinstall. You'd want to find the Yast option to control the partitioning
yourself and make sure that little partition is identified as /boot.
The only other thing I'd suggest about partitioning is I *always put /home
in a partition of its own. All the user data lives under /home. By keeping
it separate from the other partitions, I've done reinstalls and even
changed distributions without bothering my personal data.
Now, the Drake installer is intelligent enough that if it sees a /home
partition, it does *not try reformatting it. I don't know about Yast. I
would *think SuSE would have done that also, knowing they should *never
touch a /home partition unless told to do so. Again, you may need to check
for what "expert" options Yast has for controlling what it does during an
install far as doing partitioning and formating the partitions.
If you *don't separate the /home and / ("root") partition and later did a
full reinstall, your personal data would be wiped so you'd have to have
done a backup before the reinstall (okay, you should do the backup anyway
but if the installer leaves /home alone, it's less of a pain as doing a
restore from a backup if you have a lot of data is time consuming eh?).
Far as sizing for root (/), I've got 8G (my /usr/local is a separate
partition but it's barely used at half a gig, I gave way too much
space). My entire install (which includes everything but the kitchen sink)
is taking up about 4G of space.
I've been able to install things willy-nilly and pack all kinds of things
on my machine while living in no more than about 6G of root (/). Of that
14.5G root Yast created, that'd leave you 8G for your /home? Either way,
it'd leave you a lot of room to play with.
Find out how Yast handles partitioning before you try again. I'm sure
there's some way in the installer for you to do "custom" partitioning.
Then I'd suggest more or less:
/boot - about 15M or so, or just use the 39M one that's already there.
/ - about 6G (more if you think you'll be installing *lots of
software... and I mean *lots... I have a full blown copy of the
ng website running on my desktop for doing "development" and
could still fit everything I've installed into a 6G root with
room to spare).
swap - twice or two and a half times your installed memory.
/home - whatever's left over. Big as you want. And that depends on how
much space you want to give Windows.
By the way, *if you have a second drive, swap is best put on a different
drive than the root partition. If you end up swapping things in and out of
memory, it's a *bit faster if root and swap are on different drives. Of
course, if you don't have a second drive, you just don't. You have to have
a swap partition either way. Doesn't *hurt to be on the same drive as root.
Also if Windows is *anywhere in the vicinity...
Always, always, always, always use the option in the installer (they all
have them somewhere) to make a floppy boot disk. Windows does *not* play
well with others. You may have had a bootable SuSE but needed to twiddle
something to get Windows to live with another OS around.
SuSE's site has some materials on dual boots (you didn't say which windows
you were using... XP, I understand, can be *very hard to get to live with
a dual boot):
http://portal.suse.com/PM/page/search.pm?q=windows&t=optionSdbKeywords&m=25&l=en&x=true
Of course, my solution is "delete the Windows partition and *never *do
*that *again."
<G>
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
--------------------------------------------------
"Come to think of it, there are already a million
monkeys on a million typewriters, and the Usenet
is NOTHING like Shakespeare!" -- Blair Houghton
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| User: "Enkidu" |
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| Title: Re: Ping: Mark Bilbo (Linux) |
31 Jul 2004 10:54:11 AM |
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Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 16:52:58 -0700 in episode
<lbBOc.19043$mg6.10764@fed1read02> we saw our hero Enkidu
<enkidu@leaddogs.org>:
I don't know why, but I ended up with a re-partitioned
drive. There was a 22GB Windows partition, a 14.5GB Linux partition, a
500MB Linux swap partion, and a 39MB partition at the front of the drive
that I can only assume was used by GRUB.
It rather bothers me you don't know why it was partitioned. But I'm
guessing the SuSE installer did the partitioning. Usually installers have
the option for you to do it yourself if you want or allow the installer to
do it. I'm assuming you allowed the installer to do the partitioning (even
if maybe you didn't intend to?).
Poor wording on my part. I corrected this seconds later in another
message. I allowed the installer to choose the settings. I assumed it
chose enough space for Linux, and it clearly left enough space for XP,
so I went with it's settings.
Either way, the partitioning makes sense more or less. Usually at the
minimum, you get a boot partition, a root partition, and a swap partition.
Looks like boot is the 39M, root is the 14.5G, and swap is the, well, swap
(the 500M).
The boot partition would have the Grub files as well as the files Linux
needs to boot.
That was my guess.
I've been able to remove the two Linux partiotion and extend the Windows
partition into them, and restore the Windows boot loader, but I don't know
how to recover the 39MB section at the front of the drive.
If the problem was that SuSE just wouldn't boot, you don't actually need
to remove the partitions inorder to start over. You can if you want but
it's not actually necessary.
Well, I started over, and the installer tried creating new partitions
out of the current windows partition, while ignoring the previously
created Linux partition. That's no good!
I'd like to restore the system to it's one partition and try to install
the SuSE again.
Is there a tool that will stick the this little fragment back on the
main partition? I don't own Partition Magic, but I've never heard
anything bad about it. Would it help prepare my system for an install
of the SuSE anyway, and I should just fork over and buy it?
You probably know as much as I do about Partition Magic. It's been some
years since I bothered with Windows programs (my last Windows were 98 and
NT, I'm out of date <g>). But I also have heard nothing but good things
about it. I don't think it would be a waste if you bought it. Might come
in handy (it's one of those kinds of tools you may never need but if you
need it, you *really* need it <g>).
Well, that's the way I'll go. This dual-boot idea sounds good at first,
but I'm getting disenchanted pretty quick.
First, though, I'd suggest checking the SuSE manual (that is if you bought
a boxed set with a manual, you didn't say) and check on how it handles
partitioning. I haven't seen a SuSE past about 7.2 so I'm not sure what
all options Yast has these days. I'm betting, though, there's a "expert"
something or other that will enable you to control the partitioning
yourself if that's important to you.
I downloaded ISO's. I guess I'll have to spring to the boxed set as well.
The partitions the installer gave you look generally correct to me. You'll
need at minimum:
/boot
/
swap
"/boot" is usually at the front and is pretty small. Mine is 16M and only
about half used (about 8.5M used on it). 39M is kind of "big" for a boot
partition but, well, it's not a *lot of space taken up.
"/" is the root partition and generally the biggest. Your programs and
data all live there.
"swap" is usually about 2.5 times your memory. Like if you have 256M of
memory, swap should be about 640M. If you figure you'll upgrade your
memory any time soon, figuring your swap space on what you think your
memory will be isn't going to hurt. Extra swap doesn't necessarily help
but doesn't really hurt either.
(And, actually, I put 2G of swap on my machine expecting to go to 768M
soon, I've only got 512M memory at present but still am only using about
12% of my swap. The 2.5 times "rule of thumb" may be excessive itself.)
You are getting beyond me here. I'm going to print out this your post
and read through it several times as I go through this process.
Of course, my solution is "delete the Windows partition and *never *do
*that *again."
I'm beginning to come around to this opinion!
--
Enkidu
aa 2165
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without
having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of
it too?"
--Douglas Adams
Now playing . . .
Flaming Lips - In The Morning Of The Magician
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