Dear all,
I just got my new computer with an ssd and an sshd hard disk. I have asked for windows 8 preinstallation that I hope they did on the sshd disk
I would like to install opensuse too and the grub boot loader. I am thinking for reducing windows partition on the ssd disk (how?) to give space for my root linux partition.
From your experience how big that partition should be? I would like to install the latest kde version and perhaps the xfce too. Otherwise I use my pc for office work. Firefox, thunderbird, opera, some ssh sessions, vlc few text editors. How much space all these need?
You do not need only one partition, at least two and better three (and you might want more if you know why).
Just shrink that Wiindows one (or better remove it totaly :)). And leave it to the installer to make a proposal about the usage of the free space. It will probably propose a few GB for Swap, 20Gb (or 40 GB when you go for Btrfs) for / and the rest for /home. When you want different (e.g. leave some free space for the future) you could make /home smaller then “the rest”.
Note that some SSD+HD combos use the ssd as a cache Be sure you understand the configuration for your hardware. Ask here if you don’t understand
You need a swap partition about 1 plus a litle times your memory if you plan to hibernate. If not then tell us how much memory you have Also if you have any special need for alarge scale computing
You will want 40 gig for root if you use the default BTRFS file system if you use ext4 20 gig is fine
You will want some space for home. But how you use the system determines how much you want to put to home. The home partition is were all personal data and settings is stored.it defaults to XFS file system which is ok. Note you can not use a Windows file system for home. If you have special needs here ask before doing.
Thanks guys for your fast answer.
I would have a 500GB ssd and 1TB sshd hard disk.
This machine would be used primarily for windows and lightroom.
Since windows would be already installed on the ssd (hopefully) I would shrink the partition to allow some space for my linux root partition.IF I got it rigjht you have suggested me 20Gb for that.
I will not do more partitions on my ssd to keep space disk clean and allow losing bits and bytes of multiple partitions.
Now my windows Desktop folder would be in my SSHD disk.
For my linux I would also have the /home in a different partition in my SSHD disk
and the /swap too on a different partition.
I am having 16GB of memory and that means the swap has to be 17??GB to be bootable.
Question: Can I shrink the windows partition on my ssd disk to make one more for my linux root, using the latest opensuse installation dvd?
I recommend you use Windows tools to shrink Windows. Just give the Install free space to install to. Since you don’t want swap or home on the SSD then you need to take control and tell the installer exactly what you want. Software does not read minds.
I want things clear here you have BOTH a SSD and a SSHD right? They are not ganged together to make the SSHD right??? Hybrid systems can throw a monkey wrench into the install. It can be done I guess but it is not simple nor straight forward
You don’t have to have the swap and or the home on the same drive you do need at least swap though. Swap is a definite need but you can run with out a separte home partition but all personal stuff will live on the root partition. So you have to allow for that. Not knowing how you plan to use Linux no one can advise. Size 20 gig ext4 is a minimal size for root and does not take into account how much you want for your personal stuff. If you are just playing with Linux and are not a serious user 25 gig is probably just fine if ext4 if no home partition. 45 gig if using BTRFS
20 gig is ok for root if and only if you do not use the default BTRFS file system but chose the ext4 file system. This will not be automatic
> I am having 16GB of memory and that means the swap has to be 17??GB to
> be bootable.
Not for booting, for hibernation. With that amount of RAM you could do
without swap, but Linux works better with some. Me, I would create a
swap of 18 or 20 gigs. Just because I can, and will cover my needs for a
decade. I hope.
If you don’t intend to ever hibernate, you could make do with 2 or 4.
Thanks for all the answers:
Yes there are two different hard disks. I ordered two different ones
One ssd 500Gb and a second one that is sshd and is 1TB ( I just spended 30 euros more for a bit faster hard disk than a typical sata). I work a lot with linux but mostly for connecting on my work’s linux box. This is the reason that my installation does not really get big on size. Some vlc player, flash,opera , firefox, openoffice, nx client, cisco vpn are the programs I use 90% of the time.
I am sorry that I also wrote /swap for booting… I have not slept days now… I meant for hibernating.
I would only have the /root partition on my ssd disk since I want to leave most of the hard disk space free for the windows installation. I am a professional photographer too and I want to have space for photoshop and lightroom. That means that all the rest folders of my linux so /swap and /home would be on the second sshd hard disk.
The open questions to me are still:
root partition. How about 40gb space for the usage I have described (kde and xfce installed). What is the new filesystem?
/swap. Two times the memory? Hmm… IS not that a lot? I do not see how my linux can eat all the 16Gb of ram (I bought that much for my photoshop work in windows). I guess 17Gb of swap would be a safe bet
Resizing windows partition: Which tool in windows should I use? I am not 100% but I think in the past I was doing that when I was installing opensuse, since I had the option there. Why I should not give it a try? Since I never turned on my computer yet and the first think I would install is my linux why I should not do that from the linux installation? I have no personal files to loose and at the worst case I would install windows 8 from scratch.
Can you please try to stick to the correct using of expressions. Else people will again and again doubt if you understand what they try to explain.
it is swap or Swap or used for swap, not /swap (does not normally exists, but one could create such a directory);
it is / partition or root partition, not /root (that is a different directory that normally does exist);
it is /home partition or home partition (for short);
In the cases of / and /home, these are the mount points of the partitions discussed. /swap and /root are normally not mount points and /swap id not even a directory that exists in a system.
The problem is that when you do not understand/master these expressions/ideas and where they stand for, one can not be sure that you understand much of what is explained above in the trial to help you.
I, too, am pro photographer (among my many things), and I use GIMP instead of Photoshop, plenty satisfied with the results I get there. If you have not purchased Photoshop (though I am guessing you already have and are quite used to it), I suggest you try GIMP & Darkroom.
I find working with the photos in Linux to be a lot more productive, simply because it is all a lot snappier in performance.
If you are going to be working with photos (and other media) in Linux, definitely I would go for the swap double the size of RAM. 32-GiB of disk space is certainly not much of a drop in the bucket for those drives you list!
**BEST WAY TO RESIZE WINDOWS PARTITIONS:
**
First, back the system up with a reliable backup program.
Boot into Windows, turn off the windows swap file.
Boot with a partitioning tool (Parted Magic, for example, off the Hiren’s Boot CD, its partitioner on the Desktop is GParted).
Shrink the Windows system partition (not the Factory Recovery, nor the small System Reserved partition if it exists).
Boot back into Windows, turn the swap file back on.
Run Windows’ Chkdsk (My Computer, right-click the drive, use the tools where you will find a utility to check the filesystem, this is Chkdsk) on the resized partition, let it correct any errors if it finds them.
it is swap or Swap or used for swap, not /swap (does not normally exists, but one could create such a directory);
it is / partition or root partition, not /root (that is a different directory that normally does exist);
it is /home partition or home partition (for short);
yes we agree on the semantics. I have been installing opensuse almost 10 years now (God I am old…) It is more that once I learned what these thinks mean and I forget them in the mean time (how they are written since I do installation very rarely).
So my root partition would be on the ssd and the home partition on the sshd. The swap partition would be placed on the sshd though and not in the ssd (to not consume space of my ssd). To allow hibernation it should be more of my memory. Since I have 16Gb of memory 17 would do the trick. Right?
For ntfs resizing(is not that the filesystem of windows 8 or they have changed it?):
I would follow instructions from here:
To Shrink the Windows Partition, you need to interrupt the installation and boot Windows to prepare the partition before shrinking it. For all Windows file systems, proceed as follows:
Deactivate a Virtual Memory file, if there is one.
Run scandisk.
Run defrag.
which I think is the most straightforward way. Then I will launch latest opensuse dvd installation and shrink partition from there. If I am not wrong the opensuse installation supports ntfs resizing (that was the norm I think in all previous installations)
> sshd. The swap partition would be placed on the sshd though and not in
> the ssd (to not consume space of my ssd). To allow hibernation it should
> be more of my memory. Since I have 16Gb of memory 17 would do the trick.
> Right?
Today, yes.
The exact rule for swap size is “as much as you need”. Yes, fuzzy.
Ok, for hibernation you need as much free swap as used memory. That
is, if when you are going to hibernate there is 4 GiB of swap used, and
14GiB of RAM used, you would need a total of 18 GiB of swap.
But again, the figure is not exact, because the hibernation image is
compressed by default, so you can make with less - unless the feature
breaks.
Me, I would go for 20 or 30 GB of swap. Why not? Disk space is cheap.
And, if one day a photo manipulation program goes berseck and uses huge
amounts of memory and swap, your system will not crash. Who knows, 16 is
ample RAM today. Maybe not in five years or a decade. Resizing disks is
complicated.
And when possible, I spread it over several hard disks.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
On 2015-05-23 03:46, Fraser Bell wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2711416 Wrote:
>>
>> Oh, Ok, I see. I posted from another computer, I have to change the
>> “from”. Thanks for telling me.
>
> … oh!
>
> And, here, all along I thought it was just hiding from Hobbes!lol!
This one should be correct, posting from desktop machine again.
ONLY resize Windows disk from Windows if possible. It has the option in the Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Administrative Tools computer management disks right click on C drive and ‘shrink volume’ option is shown.
Also I recommend partition resizing in Linux using a live linux DVD such as GParted Live. Rather than from inside an active use Linux operating system
Not necessary, and in fact, not efficient. GParted will do the job reliably and can shrink the partition much more than the kludgy Disk Management tool in Windows, but the Windows swap file should be disabled first.
In fact, Disk Management will not even give an accurate view and accounting of a drive partitioning scheme most of the time.
It often incorrectly identifies Logical Partitions inside Extended Partitions as being “Primary” Partitions, for one thing (of many).
On 2015-05-31 10:06, Fraser Bell wrote:
>
> eionmac;2712856 Wrote:
>> ONLY resize Windows disk from Windows if possible.
>
> Not necessary, and in fact, not efficient.
It works very well if done right after installing Windows. Or rather,
after running the manufacturer recovery utility, the one that restores
the original, out of the shop, state. Soon after that, files get
scattered over the disk, and Windows can not shrink it a lot.
But if the Windows native method works, I prefer to use it. Windows is
typically happier
