Doing first install in years, partition suggestions?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I havn’t used openSUSE or linux, probably for a good 5 years. Either a 10 or 11.1 was the last version. I’m looking at adding a new drive for a smal Windows 7 for only the apps or games that only a physical Win7 install can provide. I still have some knowledge and experience with partitioning but I haven’t done it across multiple drives for a desktop. Server seems easier.

What I have now:
750-1 - Primary boot with a System, Users and just an extra partition
750-2 - All one partition, games, videos, VMs, etc. (jack of all trades)

What I want to do is setup the two 750s for openSUSE. I will have game, videos, VMs on one partition, might even just be /home, not sure.
I want to add a 250GB drive for Windows 7
My thought is…

250 - Primary boot drive with Windows 7
750-1 - /boot 512M / 20-30GB /extra for the rest
750-2 - swap 10 GB /home

Another thought is to have
750-1 - /boot 512M / 20-30GB /home ~200GB /extra rest
750-2 - swap 10 GB /foobar rest of the drive (/foobar just equals misc.)

The second one mostly resembles my Win7 setup but 750-2 is one partition, no swap or separate pagefile drive. Extra is mostly misc. Foobar is misc with games, videos, VMs, etc. I’ll sometimes encode video from foobar to extra or do large compression or any other large output to input across Extra and Foobar for efficiency.

The 250GB will be for Win7 but I’m not sure if that should be before the 750s or after as far as physical connections across SATA0, SATA1 and SATA2. Would it be best to put the 750s (SATA 0 and 1) before the 250 (SATA2), install Win 7 on the 250 (SATA2) as a third drive and then openSUSE on the 1st 750 or have the 250 first, install Win 7 on it and then openSUSE on the 1st 750 which physically would be the second drive, SATA1.

I’m leaning toward my second possible setup with Win 7 on 250GB on SATA0, installing Win7 first and then opensuse second. I think the whole disks and install order is what I’m mostly wondering about. I also think I should put swap on the same drive as / for hibernation.

Any guidence or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

#2

Windows is going to install itself on the first partition of the first drive.

SuSE doesn’t care; it will install to an extended partition on the third drive and be happy.

If this is a clean, bare-metal build, I would do it thus, and your mileage may vary:

  1. Install the drives with the 250 as SATA0 (Your MoBo BIOS may also offer options for boot order)
  2. FIRST install Windows. You may have to use a Live CD to first partition the drive so that Windows doesn’t glom onto the whole thing. My dual-boot machines typically have 40 or 50 GB Windows partitions and then access the infinitely-large NAS drives. Keep in mind that any Linux partitions on that same host will not be available when Windows is booted.
  3. Install SuSE and when you get to the screen where it presents a partition set-up, click on EDIT button and set it up as you please. One hint, here: I just delete all the proposed partitions from the drive rather than trying to resize them. Left-click on the partition (eg, /sda3), right-click, DELETE. To create a new partition, Left-click on the drive (eg, /sda), right-click, Add Partition. Select the “Custom Size” radio button, enter the size and click NEXT. Format and mount point should be self-explanatory.

As for partition sizes, you are the best judge of that. SuSE will propose about 1.5x main RAM as the swap size. I usually like bigger but I’ve never had a problem with that. You can always add more later. Then the install procedure will propose a /home size of the majority of the rest of the drive. I usually delete the proposed partition, resize root (/) to something reasonable like 20 or 30GB (because I’m not typically mounting anything at /var, and that’s where the logs go). Then /home is … whatever. It depends on your degree of … um … “organization.” One caveat: Because of the brain-damaged DOS limitation of four primaries on a spindle, for data drives I often create one massive extended partition and then have my way with it; system drives would be two or three smallish primaries then the rest in an extended. This is more appropriate with the big drives we have today, TB and larger. It takes a doggone long time to with the initial format to a 1TB partition; trust me.

But keep in mind that it’s quite painless to add partitions after the install. The Yast Partitioner tool is good - it’s actually the same tool you use during the installation. So I wouldn’t worry about all the additional partitions for VMs and multimedia during the installation. Get the system up and running first.

#3

One thing I forgot …

SuSE now uses the drive ID’s rather than their physical assignments, that is, ata-ST9500325AS_S2W5TSW0-part6 as opposed to /sda6, so the physical order doesn’t matter to SuSE. You can change it if you wish, even move the Windoze drive to SATA2 and the Grub boot loader will find the partition.

#4

Thanks for your input. I’m not new to linux, just haven’t set it up in a while on anything but small laptop drives. I still take the old school approach of having at least a /boot / /home and swap. My server has a /var /var/www and /srv for services like samba and Minecraft server but it is only one volume on RAID1. Last linux desktop I had had 2GB RAM so a 4GB swap. Mine now has 8GB so 2x is too much. Anything pass 2 GB I just use the amount of RAM + 2-4GB max. That desktop I think only had 2x120GB and split down the line with Windows on one, openSUSE on the other.

I think I’ll go 250, 750 750 and the Windows 7/8 and opensuse and use my second idea that matches my current Windows partition setup. Of course, I gota find those **** custom screws my case uses to mount that third drive (Antec 900)

#5

On 2014-08-02 15:06 (GMT) IFDLauthor composed:

> Windows is going to install itself on the first partition of the first
> drive.

That happens more often than not, but stating what you did as a fact is
blatantly false.

Windows will install itself wherever you direct it to, assuming there is a
native primary on the first HD, or space for a native primary on the first
HD. Furthermore, that native primary isn’t necessarily where it will
“install” itself, even though that’s what usually happens.

The native primary minimum size is rather small, because all it needs it for
is boot files, similar to what a Linux installation with a separate primary
partition for /boot needs, plus some extra space for some temporary files
while it is installing, with the limitation Linux doesn’t have that Windows
does, requirement of a C: for its boot files that must be a primary partition
on the first “BIOS” HD if a BIOS system, or first EFI HD if not a BIOS system.

The Windows operating system can go anywhere you make available to it.
http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/install-doz-after.html has a simple partition
structure I use as a template for most Windows installations. From it you
should be able to clearly understand what I mean if you have any doubts from
my words here. When I install Windows, its OS files almost always go on
logical D:. The assignment D: happens automatically as a result of my
partitioning in advance that induces the Windows installer to see it as a
first native logical. If you have other partitions it understands ahead of
the installation target, or have partitions it understands on other HDs, then
the letter that gets assigned to the OS partition will get a higher letter
than D:. Regardless of the letter assigned to a Windows OS partition, it will
be that letter and not C: that Windows runs from once booted.

Summary:
1-C: need not be first Windows partition, but merely a primary on the first
physical HD
2-Windows the operating system will install to a logical on any HD
addressable by BIOS if a BIOS system, or by EFI, if a valid “C:” exists, or
its installer can create one.

The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#6

On 2014-08-02 18:06, mhenry676 wrote:
>
> Thanks for your input. I’m not new to linux, just haven’t set it up in a
> while on anything but small laptop drives. I still take the old school
> approach of having at least a /boot / /home and swap. My server has a
> /var /var/www and /srv for services like samba and Minecraft server but
> it is only one volume on RAID1. Last linux desktop I had had 2GB RAM so
> a 4GB swap. Mine now has 8GB so 2x is too much. Anything pass 2 GB I
> just use the amount of RAM + 2-4GB max. That desktop I think only had
> 2x120GB and split down the line with Windows on one, openSUSE on the
> other.
>
> I think I’ll go 250, 750 750 and the Windows 7/8 and opensuse and use my
> second idea that matches my current Windows partition setup. Of course,
> I gota find those **** custom screws my case uses to mount that third
> drive (Antec 900)

If you want a separate “/boot”, give it a gigabyte. Ok, that’s probably
an overkill, but what some time ago was awfully big for boot, is now
insufficient. Do not setup for anything less than half a megabyte, and
use ext2 - not 3 nor 4. Yes, no journal, that’s intentional.

About swap size, there is no rule of thumb. Use as much as you need -
that’s my motto. Determining how much you need, that’s the difficult
part :wink:

Meaning that if you need a hundred times your ram, do it. If you think
that you will never use swap, set up nothing.

Me, I think that a modern machine should have about 12 gigs between ram
and swap.

One requirement is, that if you are going to use hibernation, you need a
swap partition that has normally as much free space as connected ram.

If you have several hard disks, you can spread swap between all of them:
the kernel can parallelize i/o.

Also distributing partitions on different disks speeds up the system.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#7

Since it seem that your openSuse is already setup please consider the
following:

disconnect both 750 GB drives.
install Win 7 to the 250 GB drive.
reconnect the 750 GB drives.
adjust grub to see the windoews installation so that you can boot it.
Done.

I had horrible problems trying to install windoews to the 250 GB SSD when
a 1 TB HD was visible. There was just no way to make it behave until i
disconnected the 1 TB disk.

?-)

On Sat, 02 Aug 2014 13:06:01 GMT, mhenry676
<mhenry676@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>I havn’t used openSUSE or linux, probably for a good 5 years. Either a
>10 or 11.1 was the last version. I’m looking at adding a new drive for a
>smal Windows 7 for only the apps or games that only a physical Win7
>install can provide. I still have some knowledge and experience with
>partitioning but I haven’t done it across multiple drives for a desktop.
>Server seems easier.
>
>What I have now:
>750-1 - Primary boot with a System, Users and just an extra partition
>750-2 - All one partition, games, videos, VMs, etc. (jack of all trades)
>
>What I want to do is setup the two 750s for openSUSE. I will have game,
>videos, VMs on one partition, might even just be /home, not sure.
>I want to add a 250GB drive for Windows 7
>My thought is…
>
>250 - Primary boot drive with Windows 7
>750-1 - /boot 512M / 20-30GB /extra for the rest
>750-2 - swap 10 GB /home
>
>Another thought is to have
>750-1 - /boot 512M / 20-30GB /home ~200GB /extra rest
>750-2 - swap 10 GB /foobar rest of the drive (/foobar just equals
>misc.)
>
>The second one mostly resembles my Win7 setup but 750-2 is one
>partition, no swap or separate pagefile drive. Extra is mostly misc.
>Foobar is misc with games, videos, VMs, etc. I’ll sometimes encode video
>from foobar to extra or do large compression or any other large output
>to input across Extra and Foobar for efficiency.
>
>The 250GB will be for Win7 but I’m not sure if that should be before the
>750s or after as far as physical connections across SATA0, SATA1 and
>SATA2. Would it be best to put the 750s (SATA 0 and 1) before the 250
>(SATA2), install Win 7 on the 250 (SATA2) as a third drive and then
>openSUSE on the 1st 750 or have the 250 first, install Win 7 on it and
>then openSUSE on the 1st 750 which physically would be the second drive,
>SATA1.
>
>I’m leaning toward my second possible setup with Win 7 on 250GB on
>SATA0, installing Win7 first and then opensuse second. I think the whole
>disks and install order is what I’m mostly wondering about. I also think
>I should put swap on the same drive as / for hibernation.
>
>Any guidence or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!