Hi All:

I'm exploring partitioning *thoroughly* for the first time. Before I
did anything, I read everything on it that I could find. Then, using
YaST on my SuSe 9 box, I saw the following configuration:

Partition-     Size-Desc-Mount-(Start)-(End)
hda-            28.6GB-Maxtor53073H4- -(0)-(3735)
hda2-         unknown-extended- -(0)-(negative 1)
hda3-         20.7GB-native-*-(0)-(2711)

hda5-         1.4GB-native-*-(2712)-(2903)
hda6-          243.1MB-native-swap-(2904)-(2934)
hda7-          26.8GB-native-/-(2935)-(6444)

Now, this isn't what I exptected. Especially since, when I "df", only
hda7 (well, and a tmpfs) shows up.

So, I have a number of questions:

hda3 is a second primary partition, yes? If so, how can I use it in
linux (for example, could I put a difference distro on it?)?

Or, alternatively, can I use something like partition magic to remove
it altogether- and add that space to another partition- without losing
data?

Am I right in thinking that I currently have everything loaded and
running in the boot partition? If that isn't optimal, what does it
affect and how can I change it?

Generally speaking, what would a "normal" setup be? If even *one* site
that I researched had a graphic example (like the above table) I think
I could've avoided this problem when I installed the OS. (For the
record, the partitions were hosed on the box prior to the
installation, too; but that shouldn't have mattered. I repartitioned
during the install)

I appreciate any answers or links to helpful websites. Be well!

:-{)]

Mark A. Morenz
Instructional Designer/Research Programmer/FM reader
217.365.0455

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Mark A. Morenz wrote:
> Hi All:
>
> I'm exploring partitioning *thoroughly* for the first time. Before I
> did anything, I read everything on it that I could find. Then, using
> YaST on my SuSe 9 box, I saw the following configuration:
>
> Partition-     Size-Desc-Mount-(Start)-(End)
> hda-            28.6GB-Maxtor53073H4- -(0)-(3735)
> hda2-         unknown-extended- -(0)-(negative 1)
> hda3-         20.7GB-native-*-(0)-(2711)
>
> hda5-         1.4GB-native-*-(2712)-(2903)
> hda6-          243.1MB-native-swap-(2904)-(2934)
> hda7-          26.8GB-native-/-(2935)-(6444)
>
> Now, this isn't what I exptected. Especially since, when I "df", only
> hda7 (well, and a tmpfs) shows up.
>
> So, I have a number of questions:
>
> hda3 is a second primary partition, yes? If so, how can I use it in
> linux (for example, could I put a difference distro on it?)?
>
> Or, alternatively, can I use something like partition magic to remove
> it altogether- and add that space to another partition- without losing
> data?
>
> Am I right in thinking that I currently have everything loaded and
> running in the boot partition? If that isn't optimal, what does it
> affect and how can I change it?
>
> Generally speaking, what would a "normal" setup be? If even *one* site
> that I researched had a graphic example (like the above table) I think
> I could've avoided this problem when I installed the OS. (For the
> record, the partitions were hosed on the box prior to the
> installation, too; but that shouldn't have mattered. I repartitioned
> during the install)
>
> I appreciate any answers or links to helpful websites. Be well!
>
> :-{)]
>
> Mark A. Morenz
> Instructional Designer/Research Programmer/FM reader
> 217.365.0455

Perhaps you could share your extensive bibiliography developed when you
read 'everything you could find'.

To start with, the data sheet for your drive says it is 30 G
unformatted.  So the listing for the entire drive as 28.6 G is probably
formatted capacity.  Your partition table adds up to about 48.  No, I
don't thing you will be able to use all this space.

If I had to hazard a guess, you installed on top of a whacky DOS/Windows
partition table without letting SuSE repartition your drive.  Am I close?

Here is what the 60 G drive on my laptop looks like with 9.1:

Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         131     1052226   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda2   *         132        7296    57552862+  83  Linux

Makes a bit more sense, eh?

Note particularly that in your case the entire drive is listed as
(0)-(3735) and your one mounted partition is (2935)-(6444).  The whole
extended partion stuff reminds me vaguely of DOS or BIOS workarounds.

One place that looks OK is

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxpla...torials/4269/1/

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Hi Timothy:

>
> Perhaps you could share your extensive bibiliography developed when you
> read 'everything you could find'.
>

HAHA, the obligatory uber-geek alpha-yet-somehow-effete-male snarky
insult. I'm glad we got that out of the way first thing. 

It was about 12 websites including linuxheadquarters.com,
techtutorials.com, linux.com, unixguide.net, etc. The usual suspects.
They all point me to a tool like Paritition Magic, but they really
don't go into details about the thinking behind the partitioning. One
site was excellent, but it was about how to strategize using multiple
disks and it may have hurt more than helped since it gave me the
impression that more partitions were inherently more efficient (hence
the hd3 that I created).

> To start with, the data sheet for your drive says it is 30 G
> unformatted.  So the listing for the entire drive as 28.6 G is probably
> formatted capacity.  Your partition table adds up to about 48.  No, I
> don't thing you will be able to use all this space.
>

I didn't realize the first listing in the table was *absolute*
capacity. My records showed this to be a 60GB harddrive, so that was
the source of much of my confusion. Thanks!

> If I had to hazard a guess, you installed on top of a whacky DOS/Windows
> partition table without letting SuSE repartition your drive.  Am I close?
>

OH boy, you aren't kidding. The old partitioning was hosed beyond
belief. Yet, something in the prompts when I installed SuSe made me
balk and I decided to try it manually. What fun!

> Here is what the 60 G drive on my laptop looks like with 9.1:
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hda1               1         131     1052226   82  Linux swap
> /dev/hda2   *         132        7296    57552862+  83  Linux
>
> Makes a bit more sense, eh?
>

Absolutely. And I notice that you've got the native partition starting
after 128. That's important as I recall...

> Note particularly that in your case the entire drive is listed as
> (0)-(3735) and your one mounted partition is (2935)-(6444).  The whole
> extended partion stuff reminds me vaguely of DOS or BIOS workarounds.
>

Again, I was thinking that I had 60GB to work with and I was just
going to have to re-point the mounting points. I see now that some of
these are going to have to go. I wonder if I can do it
non-destructively?

> One place that looks OK is
>
> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxpla...torials/4269/1/

I'll check it out. Thanks again!!

:-{)]

-MM

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On 2004-09-29, Mark A. Morenz <mmorenz@ameritech.net> wrote:
> Hi Timothy:
> 
>
> HAHA, the obligatory uber-geek alpha-yet-somehow-effete-male snarky
> insult. I'm glad we got that out of the way first thing. 

You brought it on yourself, methinks.


[snip: alles leenox ja!]
> site was excellent, but it was about how to strategize using multiple
> disks and it may have hurt more than helped since it gave me the
> impression that more partitions were inherently more efficient (hence
> the hd3 that I created).

Well, there is a purpose to partitioning. The purpose can be many things
but one that is often used is ``damage control''. What happens if
something starts a rampage and fills /tmp? Would be nice if /var (for
logging, amongst others) isn't affected by that.

Another issue is that the bigger the partition, the longer it'll take to
fsck. So, for bigger systems one wants to have a fairly small / and /usr
that will fsck quickly. Bonus points for mounting choice parts r/o. This
way, when the brown stuff does start to fly all around, it'll get you
at least some base to work with to resurrect the rest of the machine.
For small (home, desktop) machines, through softupdates and journalling
filesystems, it hardly seems worth the extra effort. As soon as your
machine has multiple terrabytes attached, however...


[snip: ye olde one-big-disk partitioning]
> Absolutely. And I notice that you've got the native partition starting
> after 128. That's important as I recall...

Various older machines have silly IDE<->BIOS interaction induced limits
at various points. One such limit being 528MB. On those machines you
have to have your kernel before whatever the limit of the day is, or the
BIOS (which many a loader uses) can't access the file. I have not heard
about a `before' limit before. However, due to (again) BIOS braindamage
you can't start on the zeroeth cylinder, plus you'll have to align the
partitions in a particular fashion. I usually let some program (ie fdisk)
deal with this for me.


--
j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

In article <415a0b31$0$204$75868355@news.frii.net>, Timothy J. Bogart wrote:
> Mark A. Morenz wrote: 
>
> Perhaps you could share your extensive bibiliography developed when you
> read 'everything you could find'.
>
> To start with, the data sheet for your drive says it is 30 G
> unformatted.  So the listing for the entire drive as 28.6 G is probably
> formatted capacity.  Your partition table adds up to about 48.  No, I
> don't thing you will be able to use all this space.
>
> If I had to hazard a guess, you installed on top of a whacky DOS/Windows
> partition table without letting SuSE repartition your drive.  Am I close?
>
> Here is what the 60 G drive on my laptop looks like with 9.1:
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hda1               1         131     1052226   82  Linux swap
> /dev/hda2   *         132        7296    57552862+  83  Linux
>
> Makes a bit more sense, eh?

Sure, if you have no problems with your whole system under a single partitio
n!

There are many pitfalls associated with this, including: resizing difficulti
es,
/tmp fills and your whole partition is full, etc.

In my experience, it is best to have at least the following directories on
separate filesystems: / , /var, /tmp and sometimes /boot. In addition, I
usually have /usr/local, /usr and /home as additional partitions.

Beyond that, using LVM is even more flexible and keeps the partioning down. 
My
fdisk output looks like this:


Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1        19    152586   83  Linux
/dev/hda2            20      2569  20482875   8e  Linux LVM

But inside the LVM partition, I have 8 Logical Volumes - each a separate
filesystem...

> Note particularly that in your case the entire drive is listed as
> (0)-(3735) and your one mounted partition is (2935)-(6444).  The whole
> extended partion stuff reminds me vaguely of DOS or BIOS workarounds.

Well, you can only have 4 primary partitions, so frequently you use extended
partitions to go around that. I know that I have often seen systems with
swap and /boot as separate primary partitions and the rest of the filesystem
s
will be partitions within an extended one.

> One place that looks OK is
>
> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxpla...torials/4269/1/

Kevin

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Kevin Collins wrote:
> In article <415a0b31$0$204$75868355@news.frii.net>, Timothy J. Bogart wrot
e:
>
<snip> 
>
>
> Sure, if you have no problems with your whole system under a single partition![/vb
col]

In the context of the discussion, compared to a whacked partition table,
it not only seem to make more sense, but in fact could be argued as
preferable.
[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> There are many pitfalls associated with this, including: resizing difficul
ties,
> /tmp fills and your whole partition is full, etc.

I think that is a bit strong.  There can be advantages to both
approaches.  In effect, you remove 'resizing difficulties' as there is
nothing to resize.  If /tmp (or /var or / or sometimes /usr) fills, what
difference does it make what the actual size is - the system is going to
be hosed until you clear out some space.  Actually, the argument that
you have a lot of headroom in each of the critical filesystems gives you
more time to deal with whatever issue cropped up to challenge your space.

>
> In my experience, it is best to have at least the following directories on
> separate filesystems: / , /var, /tmp and sometimes /boot. In addition, I
> usually have /usr/local, /usr and /home as additional partitions.

And now you had better have a good idea of what the space requirements
for your system use are, or you have created resizing issues.  Want to
experiment with kernels?  Did you leave enough space?  Want to download
a 13 CD test set for Debian?  Feel like turning on snort to start
learning network attack analysis, hmmm, leave the system default storage
location or redirect to /home because that happens to be where you have
the space.  If you have the whole drive available, you have more
flexability without having to rework your partitioning scheme.

Of course, in a commercial environment, there are plenty of cases where
you want to impose some sort of control, and partitioning is one way to
do it.
>
> Beyond that, using LVM is even more flexible and keeps the partioning down
. My
> fdisk output looks like this:
>
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hda1   *         1        19    152586   83  Linux
> /dev/hda2            20      2569  20482875   8e  Linux LVM
>
> But inside the LVM partition, I have 8 Logical Volumes - each a separate
> filesystem...

Which is the much better way to impose controls when you want to. Note
that it still has the same issues with flexability as described above.

Hmmm, those schemes that are good for control create problems with
flexability - I wonder if there is some magical relationship there.  8-)

Of course, rather pointless if the OP really was wanting to understand
partioning as stated - or quite insightfull if the OP really meant to
ask about disk organization instead...
>
> 
>
>
> Well, you can only have 4 primary partitions, so frequently you use extend
ed
> partitions to go around that. I know that I have often seen systems with
> swap and /boot as separate primary partitions and the rest of the filesyst
ems
> will be partitions within an extended one.

OK.  Maybe I missed something or don't remember as much as I should
about extended partitions.  The extended partions can go past the last
available track?  Or let you overlap the same track among two
partitions?  My hazy recollection says no, whether primary or extended
partion, things still have to fit on the drive and not overlap each other.

<snip>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

In article <4165c18f$0$210$75868355@news.frii.net>, Timothy J. Bogart wrote:
> Kevin Collins wrote: 
><snip> 
>
> In the context of the discussion, compared to a whacked partition table,
>   it not only seem to make more sense, but in fact could be argued as
> preferable.
> 
>
> I think that is a bit strong.  There can be advantages to both
> approaches.  In effect, you remove 'resizing difficulties' as there is
> nothing to resize.  If /tmp (or /var or / or sometimes /usr) fills, what
> difference does it make what the actual size is - the system is going to
>   be hosed until you clear out some space.  Actually, the argument that
> you have a lot of headroom in each of the critical filesystems gives you
> more time to deal with whatever issue cropped up to challenge your space.

Yes, but a user of that system can fill /tmp, while they can't (easily) fill
/var or /, which can then hose your whole system...
 
>
> And now you had better have a good idea of what the space requirements
> for your system use are, or you have created resizing issues.  Want to
> experiment with kernels?  Did you leave enough space?  Want to download
> a 13 CD test set for Debian?  Feel like turning on snort to start
> learning network attack analysis, hmmm, leave the system default storage
> location or redirect to /home because that happens to be where you have
> the space.  If you have the whole drive available, you have more
> flexability without having to rework your partitioning scheme.

So, what you are saying is, since it takes some work and knowledge, you'd
rather be ignorant and stick everything under a single, monolithic filesyste
m
instead of thinking about it?

One other thing I forgot to mention - it now becomes much easier to corrupt
your filesystem in a crash scenario, since ALL open files now reside on the
same one...

> Of course, in a commercial environment, there are plenty of cases where
> you want to impose some sort of control, and partitioning is one way to
> do it. 
>
> Which is the much better way to impose controls when you want to. Note
> that it still has the same issues with flexability as described above.

Really, have you ever used LVM? I fail to see how it has any of those
restrictions. Want a bigger partition, make it bigger.

> Hmmm, those schemes that are good for control create problems with
> flexability - I wonder if there is some magical relationship there.  8-)

> Of course, rather pointless if the OP really was wanting to understand
> partioning as stated - or quite insightfull if the OP really meant to
> ask about disk organization instead...

Well, I generally try to answer the question that was stated and not the
question I think was *supposed* to be asked.
 
>
> OK.  Maybe I missed something or don't remember as much as I should
> about extended partitions.  The extended partions can go past the last
> available track?  Or let you overlap the same track among two
> partitions?  My hazy recollection says no, whether primary or extended
> partion, things still have to fit on the drive and not overlap each other.

My comment had nothing to do with his screwed up partition table, it had to 
do
with the purpose and usefulness of extended partitions...

Kevin

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Kevin Collins wrote:
> In article <4165c18f$0$210$75868355@news.frii.net>, Timothy J. Bogart wrot
e:
> 
<snip>[vbcol=seagreen] 
>
>
> Yes, but a user of that system can fill /tmp, while they can't (easily) fi
ll
> /var or /, which can then hose your whole system...

OK, so that seems to support what I said about the advantage of having a
large free space available....??

>
> 
>
>
> So, what you are saying is, since it takes some work and knowledge, you'd
> rather be ignorant and stick everything under a single, monolithic filesys
tem
> instead of thinking about it?

I suppose that is one way of looking at it.  There is another.  Don't
waste effort on complicated schemes that don't have a real payoff.  Just
because you know how to do something and that something takes some
effort, doesn't mean it is worth doing.  You might feel better, but is
the machine better off?  "Thinking about it" means making an intelligent
determination - not just coming up with a complicated scheme.
>
> One other thing I forgot to mention - it now becomes much easier to corrup
t
> your filesystem in a crash scenario, since ALL open files now reside on th
e
> same one...
>

That's funny. Try this:  the more filesystems you have, the higher the
probablility one of them will corrupt.
> 
>
>
> Really, have you ever used LVM? I fail to see how it has any of those
> restrictions. Want a bigger partition, make it bigger.

Been using at least one brand of LVM since 1990 or 91.  Count the number
of steps you perform to adjust the size of the filesystem.  Multiply
this by the number of different filesystems you have and by the number
of times you have need to adjust.  Add a fudge factor for gnawing on
your knuckles deciding how much additional space you are willing to
commit (gotta leave as much space as possible for unforseen growth!).
Compare result to the effort required by taking the approach of having
all the filesystems on one disk.
>
> 
>
> 
>
>
> Well, I generally try to answer the question that was stated and not the
> question I think was *supposed* to be asked.

Then by all means do so.  I just don't see where this discussion has
helped the poor fellow with the wacked partition table.
>
> 
>
>
> My comment had nothing to do with his screwed up partition table, it had t
o do
> with the purpose and usefulness of extended partitions...

Fair enough.  Thanks for the reminder.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]