I read that by default openSUSE divides the disk into 3 partitions- swap, / and /home. However, when I install openSUSE on vmware workstation 7 with 10 GB disk space it provides only 2 partitions- swap and / .
I plan to install openSUSE as my main OS. How should I partition the disk space? I’ve one 320 GB SATA and 80 GB IDE. Will making 2 partitions - swap and / - be favorable over 3 partitions - swap, / and /home ? Or should I make 3 partitions (what sizes?)
You should choose 3 partitions: root, swap and home. Make the swap partition twice the size of your RAM but with a limit of 2 GB. Make the root partition 10Gb or more and the home partition 10Gb or more.
Of course, the exact sizes of root and home are for you to decide. And you could add in a backup system utilising some of the excess space for regular synching with the home partition.
The size is up to you. However, it is better to have /home in a separate partition so that this partition can be kept untouched when you install newer versions of openSUSE.
I keep it that way and it allows me to keep all personal data - mails, documents, music, video etc. - intact when I install newer versions.
Sizing:
A general rule is to provide 2 times the RAM size to the swap partition. (You may limit it below 4GB).
I generally allocate 20-40GB for the non-home.
I always make sure that programs such as databases etc. use /home partition to store data.
I plan to use this scheme:-
Swap—>2 GB
/ ---->15 gb
/home ----> rest (approx. 370 GB)
But will my 80 GB IDE affect the partition scheme? I’ll install openSUSE on 320 GB SATA so the /home partition will encompass the 80 GB IDE too.
But will my 80 GB IDE affect the partition scheme? I’ll install openSUSE on 320 GB SATA so the /home partition will encompass the 80 GB IDE too.
what do you mean? clarify!
I have 2 disks- 320 GB SATA and 80 GB IDE. As I understand partitioning my 2 disks will be referred to as sda and hdb. So any partition on SATA will be sda[1…] and on IDE will be hd[1…].
Now when I make 3 partitions on my total disk space(ie SATA + IDE) with swap(1 GB), / (15 GB) and /home(the rest), the /home partion(which starts from sdax) extend to the IDE (hdbx). Is this possible? Will openSUSE see a single /home partition and not 2 separate sdax and hdbx?
Partitions are parts of devices, and different hard disks are different devices. So none of your partitions will span more than one device. You’ll find out when you do the partitioning, as the installer will ask you what devices to put the partitions on.
You can, of course, put /root on one device and /home on another.
Partitions are parts of devices, and different hard disks are different devices. So none of your partitions will span more than one device.
You can, of course, put /root on one device and /home on another
So I’ll have to make 4 partitons- swap, / and /home on SATA and a separate partition on IDE? I want to use the IDE partition solely for virtual machines, so can I name this partition as /virtual machine ?
I have 2 disks- 320 GB SATA and 80 GB IDE. As I understand partitioning my 2 disks will be referred to as sda and hdb. So any partition on SATA will be sda[1…] and on IDE will be hd[1…].
Now when I make 3 partitions on my total disk space(ie SATA + IDE) with swap(1 GB), / (15 GB) and /home(the rest), the /home partion(which starts from sdax) extend to the IDE (hdbx). Is this possible? Will openSUSE see a single /home partition and not 2 separate sdax and hdbx?
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Are you talking about LVM?
What for?
absolutely
Thanks for the help 
So I’ll have to make 4 partitons- swap, / and /home on SATA and a separate partition on IDE?
To make things easier later,add an extended primary to your list of swap, / ,/home on the SATA disk.
What primary? I mean which directory in the primary?
IMHO 15 GB for “/” is small on a disk this size. I’d rather go for 30GB, leaving enough space for some bigger games etc. My suggestion:
swap 2GB
“/” 30 GB
“/home” 30GB
“/data” what’s left.
Then work like this: documents and configs in the user’s home, stored things like Music, Video on /data.
On Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:56:01 +0000, ISharma wrote for a reply:
>> Partitions are parts of devices, and different hard disks are different
>> devices. So none of your partitions will span more than one device. You
>> can, of course, put /root on one device and /home on another
> So I’ll have to make 4 partitons- swap, / and /home on SATA and a
> separate partition on IDE? I want to use the IDE partition solely for
> virtual machines, so can I name this partition as /virtual machine ?
That works except, I think I’d put / (root), /swap and /VBpartition on
the IDE and /home on the SATA.
If you don’t select to use custom installation you won’t be able to set
the volumes, and you’ll end up with LVM volumes and groups, instead of /
sda1 and /sdb1 devices. .
IIRC, with LVM it treats both drives as one partition of 400GB and will
partition according to your partitioning using the custom installation.
It takes a bit more work to maintain LVM volume groups.
This is a more organized way of keeping things. Note the suggestion for the “/” partition.
But how do I add /data or /VM partitions. I’m installing currently and the only mount points I see are in the drop-down menu-/usr,/tmp,/var,/local…
How do I add a custom mount point like /data and /VM?
Plz help urgently.
Manually type it, for example if you wanted a particular mount point for windows
/windows7
or
/STORE
for a storage partition
Thanks.
I already solved my problem via Yast.
Just installed openSUSE and loving it. Finally O’m a part of the openSUSE community lol!
This is good to read, future questions will be welcome, Enjoy openSUSE.