best practice in partinoning a old notebook for Suse-Linux

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

hello dear Linux-Experts

just installed another Notebook that i have found here.
(note i have newer ones - with pretty good hardware and big drives.
This one - is a older Toshiba - with not so good data / harddrive and other performance data. ) I use it - beside the two other and stronger ones - as a notebook that i take along with me - when i travel around… So there are no extensive features wanted - and no big performance.

But i like it for its big screen and the nice and very good keyboard. So i installed the opensuse 13.1 - from scratch and it worked great.

Note: used the LXDE - Environment - and not the KDE. which ends up in some leightweight view. Butg this is okay for me.

the first overall-impression after the installation is great. All works great. I cannot see any loss in speed and all seems fine.

Here some data: guess that i can configure the drive in a more efficient way like i did:

note - this might be agreat way to learn - how to do best in configuring.

BTW - how can a reorganisation of the partition AFTER the installation. Is this doable - what do you say.!?

Which values for the following are appropiate and useful!?

rootfs
home
extended-partition

what do you advice!?

Would you do this with gparted or with the linux-tools that are shipped with opensuse 13.1?

and last but not least. Are there any values that i can request via Terminal!?



4    ./.gnome2_private
34712    .
martin@linux-74t6:~> zypper lr -d
# | Alias                     | Name                               | Aktiviert | Aktualisieren | Priorität | Typ   | URI                                                                 | Dienst
--+---------------------------+------------------------------------+-----------+---------------+-----------+-------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------
1 | openSUSE-13.1-1.10        | openSUSE-13.1-1.10                 | Ja        | Nein          |   99      | yast2 | cd:///?devices=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MATSHITADVD-RAM_UJ-841S,/dev/sr0 |       
2 | repo-debug                | openSUSE-13.1-Debug                | Nein      | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/      |       
3 | repo-debug-update         | openSUSE-13.1-Update-Debug         | Nein      | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/update/13.1/                     |       
4 | repo-debug-update-non-oss | openSUSE-13.1-Update-Debug-Non-Oss | Nein      | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/update/13.1-non-oss/             |       
5 | repo-non-oss              | openSUSE-13.1-Non-Oss              | Ja        | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.1/repo/non-oss/        |       
6 | repo-oss                  | openSUSE-13.1-Oss                  | Ja        | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/            |       
7 | repo-source               | openSUSE-13.1-Source               | Nein      | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/     |       
8 | repo-update               | openSUSE-13.1-Update               | Ja        | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1/                           |       
9 | repo-update-non-oss       | openSUSE-13.1-Update-Non-Oss       | Ja        | Ja            |   99      | NONE  | http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1-non-oss/                   |       
martin@linux-74t6:~>

and the following data:



martin@linux-74t6:~> df - aTh
df: „-“: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
df: „aTh“: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
martin@linux-74t6:~> df -aTh
Dateisystem    Typ             Größe Benutzt Verf. Verw% Eingehängt auf
rootfs         rootfs            20G    3,5G   15G   19% /
devtmpfs       devtmpfs         933M     16K  933M    1% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M       0  945M    0% /dev/shm
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M    3,1M  942M    1% /run
devpts         devpts              0       0     0     - /dev/pts
/dev/sda6      ext4              20G    3,5G   15G   19% /
proc           proc                0       0     0     - /proc
sysfs          sysfs               0       0     0     - /sys
securityfs     securityfs          0       0     0     - /sys/kernel/security
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M       0  945M    0% /sys/fs/cgroup
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd
pstore         pstore              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/pstore
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/memory
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/devices
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb
systemd-1      autofs              0       0     0     - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
debugfs        debugfs             0       0     0     - /sys/kernel/debug
hugetlbfs      hugetlbfs           0       0     0     - /dev/hugepages
mqueue         mqueue              0       0     0     - /dev/mqueue
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M    3,1M  942M    1% /var/lock
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M    3,1M  942M    1% /var/run
/dev/sda7      ext4              31G     84M   30G    1% /home
fusectl        fusectl             0       0     0     - /sys/fs/fuse/connections
gvfsd-fuse     fuse.gvfsd-fuse     0       0     0     - /run/user/1000/gvfs
gvfsd-fuse     fuse.gvfsd-fuse     0       0     0     - /var/run/user/1000/gvfs
/dev/sr0       iso9660          4,2G    4,2G     0  100% /run/media/martin/openSUSE-13.1-DVD-i5860091
/dev/sr0       iso9660          4,2G    4,2G     0  100% /var/run/media/martin/openSUSE-13.1-DVD-i5860091
martin@linux-74t6:~>

what would you say

btw - what can be seen as overhead and useless here. Are there any partitions that are not needed!?

How to optimize all

which is a minimalistic partition-table!?

#2

On 2013-12-28 15:26, dilbertone wrote:

> WHICH VALUES FOR THE FOLLOWING ARE **APPROPIATE AND USEFUL!?
> rootfs
> home
> extended-partition

How big is your disk and ram?
It is not possible to give an advice unless you tell that.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Elessar))
**

#3

Hi,

it seems that you are in a situation where you create partitions from scratch, on a blank(ed) hard disk.

Modifying the sizes of existing partitions after their creation, instead, is always the 2nd choice.

What I see from your post, 20 GB for / (or root), and 31 GB for /home should work.

Still no informations about swap, so perhaps you could post the output of

parted -l

which you enter as root in a terminal.

With respect to the sizes of / and /home :

Until present you make use of only 19% of / (or 19% of your 20GB root partition).

If you don’t intend to install much more software, then you could reduce the size of that partition to 10GB,
increasing the size of your /home partition, which may be filled up with user data in the future.

A Swap partition of 2GB should be OK.

Good luck
Mike

#4

good evening dear Mike hello dear Robin

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif

many thanks for the many information and tipps. Robin and Mike - as allway it is great to hear from you. Great to get so many valuable advices.
Robin you are right; i have to provide more information:

Note: i konw that the notebook is quite very old - and i want to use it as a “third” notebook. I have two others which are faster / better and much newer.
Mike - Your ideas are very good and i think i will apply some of them. And well - i think that the following data is valuable and interesting too

How are the hard drives partitioned

fdisk -l


linux-74t6:/home/martin # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes, 156301488 sectors
Units = Sektoren of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0001159f

   Gerät  boot.     Anfang        Ende     Blöcke   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *    46153728   156301311    55073792    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda2         4208640    46153727    20972544   8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda4          321536     4208639     1943552   8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda5        46155776    50364415     2104320   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6        50366464    91553791    20593664   83  Linux
/dev/sda7        91555840   156280831    32362496   83  Linux

Partitionstabelleneinträge sind nicht in Platten-Reihenfolge
linux-74t6:/home/martin #

and - i guess that this is valuable too:

Memory and swap information

cat /proc/meminfo


linux-74t6:/home/martin # cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:        1934352 kB
MemFree:         1194208 kB
Buffers:           42092 kB
Cached:           317732 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:           386272 kB
Inactive:         305744 kB
Active(anon):     333616 kB
Inactive(anon):    16848 kB
Active(file):      52656 kB
Inactive(file):   288896 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
HighTotal:       1055368 kB
HighFree:         394304 kB
LowTotal:         878984 kB
LowFree:          799904 kB
SwapTotal:       2104316 kB
SwapFree:        2104316 kB
Dirty:               132 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:        332200 kB
Mapped:           101800 kB
Shmem:             18280 kB
Slab:              28724 kB
SReclaimable:      17808 kB
SUnreclaim:        10916 kB
KernelStack:        2224 kB
PageTables:         3100 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     3071492 kB
Committed_AS:    1378132 kB
VmallocTotal:     122880 kB
VmallocUsed:       13160 kB
VmallocChunk:     109208 kB
HardwareCorrupted:     0 kB
AnonHugePages:     90112 kB
HugePages_Total:       0
HugePages_Free:        0
HugePages_Rsvd:        0
HugePages_Surp:        0
Hugepagesize:       4096 kB
DirectMap4k:       20472 kB
DirectMap4M:      888832 kB
linux-74t6:/home/martin #

and the command parted -l


martin@linux-74t6:~> su
Passwort: 
linux-74t6:/home/martin # parted -l
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MK8026GA (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 80,0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags
 4      165MB   2155MB  1990MB  primary                   lvm, type=8e
 2      2155MB  23,6GB  21,5GB  primary                   lvm, type=8e
 1      23,6GB  80,0GB  56,4GB  extended                  boot, lba, type=0f
 5      23,6GB  25,8GB  2155MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)  type=82
 6      25,8GB  46,9GB  21,1GB  logical   ext4            type=83
 7      46,9GB  80,0GB  33,1GB  logical   ext4            type=83


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Das Dateisystem ist nur lesbar).
/dev/sr0 has been opened read-only.
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!                           
Model: MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-841S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 4442MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: unknown

linux-74t6:/home/martin # parted -l

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif

** note;: somewhat funny **- the partiton-table is in MSDOS…
this has to do that in earlier times **MSDOS **was running on the notebook

does this influence my new linux in some way.
note - i never ever want to have msdos back :wink:

again - as said above - i will apply some information and tipps.

Many thanks for all you do here in the forums. I am glad to be here in the forums.

#5

On 2013-12-29 00:06, dilbertone wrote:

> Code:
> --------------------
>
> linux-74t6:/home/martin # fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes, 156301488 sectors
…
> Gerät boot. Anfang Ende Blöcke Id System
> /dev/sda1 * 46153728 156301311 55073792 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
> /dev/sda2 4208640 46153727 20972544 8e Linux LVM
> /dev/sda4 321536 4208639 1943552 8e Linux LVM
> /dev/sda5 46155776 50364415 2104320 82 Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda6 50366464 91553791 20593664 83 Linux
> /dev/sda7 91555840 156280831 32362496 83 Linux
>
> Partitionstabelleneinträge sind nicht in Platten-Reihenfolge
> linux-74t6:/home/martin #
>
>
> --------------------

Why are you using LVM? This complicates things. Unless you really know how to use them, don’t.

> Code:
> --------------------
>
> linux-74t6:/home/martin # cat /proc/meminfo
> MemTotal: 1,934.352 kB

> --------------------

2 GiB. Not much.

> * note;: somewhat funny *- the partiton-table is in MSDOS…
> this has to do that in earlier times *MSDOS *was running on the notebook

No, that is the correct type.

Ok, if it were my computer (I have a laptop of the same size), I would create a totally fresh setup.
6 gigs for swap, 12 for root, the rest for home, no more. In my case, I also have a 1.5 gig
partition for puppy.

Another possibility is not having a separate home.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Elessar))

#6

hello dear Robin :slight_smile:

many many thanks for the quick reply - great to hear from you.

you provide a valuable asset of konwledge and help - many thanks - i regard this as very helpful!

Ok, if it were my computer (I have a laptop of the same size), I would create a totally fresh setup.
6 gigs for swap, 12 for root, the rest for home, no more. In my case, I also have a 1.5 gig
partition for puppy.

Another possibility is not having a separate home.

i will do as you advice - i do a fresh setup.- according the data you providet

many thanks again
:slight_smile:

#7

Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that any MS-DOS is installed on your system.
This is just the info that the partition table of your hard disk is of the old style,
used as well for older versions of windows up to windows 7.

Concerning Swap:

It’s better to have enough RAM in order to not need to use swap,
because the system then gets really slow.

If you google ‘swap linux’ you’ll get more on that.

It seems that the amount of RAM (you have 2 GB, right?) + 512 MB
is a good choice.

Good luck
Mike

#8

hello dear Mike hello Robin

thx for the hints - will take them into account.

btw - Robin told me not to use LVM -

Why are you using LVM? This complicates things. Unless you really know how to use them, don’t.

well - i now think that i will not use LVM -

at the moment i have put in a Gparted-Disk into the Notebook -
With Gparted i have many many options of configuring

BTW - can i set the LVM-Flag with (in) the Gparted or
would you prefer to do that with the installation-DVD - the installation-medium opensuse 13.1?

Note - i a m big fan of using Gparted because it has a nice and clear overview on all the partitions.

But if i cannot set the LVM-Flag to off - i will make all the changes - with the installation-medium - the opensuse 13.1 dvd

#9

On 2013-12-29 14:26, dilbertone wrote:
> BTW - can i set the LVM-Flag with (in) the Gparted or
> would you prefer to do that with the installation-DVD - the
> installation-medium opensuse 13.1?

You can tell the installation ptrogram to use the entire disk.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Elessar))

#10

hello and good evening

dear Robin and dear Mike - Many thanks for the hints - i am happy to get such hints.

In the meantime i ´ ve made a new configuration with Gparted
i also managed to treat the LVM Flags with Gparted -

btw - what makes me a bit wondering is the huge size of the extended partition.
Question: is this quite mandantory or - hmm lets say needed -
in other words: does the extendet partition include all that is** not **

a. root or primary partion!?

well it looks like that there is the extended partition the sum of

a. swap position number 5
b. position number 6

**question: ** is this okay!?



linux-ibyp:/home/martin # parted -l
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MK8026GA (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 80,0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags
 2      1049kB  13,1GB  13,1GB  primary   ext4            boot, type=83
 1      13,1GB  80,0GB  66,9GB  extended                  type=05
 5      13,8GB  20,2GB  6349MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)  type=82
 6      20,2GB  80,0GB  59,8GB  logical   ext4            type=83


Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Das Dateisystem ist nur lesbar).
/dev/sr0 has been opened read-only.
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!                           
Model: MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-841S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 4442MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: unknown

btw - is this okay to have such a big extended partition!?

look forward to hear from you

greetings

btw -. see also this:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif


linux-ibyp:/home/martin # df -aTh
Dateisystem    Typ             Größe Benutzt Verf. Verw% Eingehängt auf
rootfs         rootfs            12G    3,5G  7,9G   31% /
devtmpfs       devtmpfs         933M     16K  933M    1% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M       0  945M    0% /dev/shm
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M    3,1M  942M    1% /run
devpts         devpts              0       0     0     - /dev/pts
/dev/sda2      ext4              12G    3,5G  7,9G   31% /
proc           proc                0       0     0     - /proc
sysfs          sysfs               0       0     0     - /sys
securityfs     securityfs          0       0     0     - /sys/kernel/security
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M       0  945M    0% /sys/fs/cgroup
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd
pstore         pstore              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/pstore
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/memory
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/devices
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event
cgroup         cgroup              0       0     0     - /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb
systemd-1      autofs              0       0     0     - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
debugfs        debugfs             0       0     0     - /sys/kernel/debug
hugetlbfs      hugetlbfs           0       0     0     - /dev/hugepages
mqueue         mqueue              0       0     0     - /dev/mqueue
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M    3,1M  942M    1% /var/run
tmpfs          tmpfs            945M    3,1M  942M    1% /var/lock
/dev/sda6      ext4              55G     91M   53G    1% /home
fusectl        fusectl             0       0     0     - /sys/fs/fuse/connections
gvfsd-fuse     fuse.gvfsd-fuse  0,0K    0,0K  0,0K     - /run/user/1000/gvfs
gvfsd-fuse     fuse.gvfsd-fuse  0,0K    0,0K  0,0K     - /var/run/user/1000/gvfs
/dev/sr0       iso9660          4,2G    4,2G     0  100% /run/media/martin/openSUSE-13.1-DVD-i5860091
/dev/sr0       iso9660          4,2G    4,2G     0  100% /var/run/media/martin/openSUSE-13.1-DVD-i5860091
linux-ibyp:/home/martin #
#11

I have OpenSUSE running on a 7-year-old Acer laptop with 2 Gigs of memory, runs like a charm, nice & snappy performance.

In my humble opinion, I would launch Gparted again and recreate the partitions one more time. I will explain below.

btw - what makes me a bit wondering is the huge size of the extended partition.
Question: is this quite mandantory or - hmm lets say needed -
in other words: does the extendet partition include all that is** not **

a. root or primary partion!?

An extended partition actually is a special type of Primary partition to hold multiple logical drives.

You can have 4 Primary partitions on a drive (3 normal Primaries and and Extended with logical drives if you want more than 4 partitions, or all can be normal Primary partitions if you have 4 or less partitions.).

btw - is this okay to have such a big extended partition!?

From what I see in your situation, I wouldn’t bother having an extended partition at all, just 3 Primary partitions, One for root (/), One for home (/home), and the 3rd would be the special case Swap partition (/Swap).

My recommendation?

Launch Gparted, delete all partitions. Do not bother to create any new partitions.

Launch the OpenSUSE install, and when you get to the choices for partitions, do not select LVM. Mostly, you will want to just accept the defaults that are recommended to you by the OpenSUSE installer.

Let it suggest a seperate home partition, then look over what it is suggesting.

What you might want to do is adjust a couple sizes, and perhaps partition type.

I have a lot of applications installed, yet my root partition is only filled with less than 10-Gigs of data, so you can adjust your root down to 20-Gigs or even 15-Gigs and still have plenty of room for future installs.

Let OpenSUSE suggest the swap size.

Make the /home partition take up the rest of the disk, it is where you will want the most space available. Check that the root & home partitions are both going to be Primary partitions. If one says extended, just change that to Primary in the installer’s partition editor.

OpenSUSE will take care of all the rest.

Good luck, and enjoy.

-fb

#12

On 2013-12-30 01:06, dilbertone wrote:

> btw - what makes me a bit wondering is the huge size of the extended
> partition.
> Question: is this quite mandantory or - hmm lets say needed -
> in other words: does the extendet partition include all that is* not
> *
>
> a. root or primary partion!?
>
> well it looks like that there is the extended partition the sum of
>
> a. swap position number 5
> b. position number 6
>
> *question: * is this okay!?

The extended partition is a type of primary partition that contains ALL the logical partitions,
numbered 5 onwards. So, yes, it is large.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Elessar))

#13

Hi Martin,

the size of an extended partition never is a problem (at least as it doesn’t exceed 2 TB when using an MBR as in your case).

What can pose real problems, is the maximum possible number of partitions (primary and/or extended)
on an old style system (using MBR).

That especially becomes relevant, when a dual boot system of Linux and Windows should be set up
on such a system.
But that doesn’t regard you, as you don’t seem to intend to install openSUSE alongside windows.

I think your setup looks fine.

You may reduce the size of your SWAP to the size of your RAM plus 0.5 to 1 GB,
and add the freed space to your / (or root).

But that isn’t mandatory.
Your system should work fine as is.

Good luck
Mike

#14

I agree.

All good advice, you could follow the directions in my previous post, which would allow you to add an Extended partition as the 4th primary if you ever desire additional partitions in the future.

Or you could do as Mike suggests.

Or, even as Mike said in his final statement: “Your system should work fine as is.”.

It is all good, and it is all up to you.

Have fun.

-fb

#15

If you go for a separate and relatively small / partition, you may have problems with temp (in /tmp) or database (in /var) files.

IME the root filesystem grows to 10-12GB in my desktop boxes and 8-10GB in my laptops/netbooks.

So if you have large temp files - for example, when copying a 4.4GB DVD, a 4.4 image file may be created in /tmp depending on how the burner is set (or if you only have one DVDWriter, as is the case with laptops), you may find yourself without disk space. This happened to me once, when I decided that 12GB was enough for root (/).

If your root + home is less than, say, 50GB, I’d certainly go for a single root+home partition. If more, I’d keep at least 15GB for root and the rest for /home.

Of course, there are workarounds for juggling the remaining disk space (turning /tmp into a link to /home/tmp, for instance). But why worry?

Just my two cents.

P.S.: I usually set a separate / with 20GB, and haven’t had a problem yet. But I only have larger disks than yours.