partitioning for dual-linux..

[Digby Tarvin <digbyt@acm.org>]

I have just about sorted out Debian on my laptop to the point where I
am ready to do a final permanent install, so I now need to decide on
a good final partitioning scheme.

I want to be able to run two unix/linux systems side by side, so I want to
keep shareable partitions (such as home, swap and tmp) separate from
distribution specific ones (root and usr). The parallel operating system
provision means I can evaluate other distributions, as well as upgrade
to new releases while keeping the previous one available for a while.

I also plan to keep the bundled operating system in case it ever needs
service and to test new hardware before trying to get Linux driver working.

My traditional partitioning scheme is to have /var for all changing system
data and /home for changing user data, and ideally these are the only
partitions mounted r/w - which means these are the only partitions that
need regular backup. They can also usually be mounted nosuid and nodev
to improve security. /usr is fairly static and mounted read-only. The
root filesystem is small and changes infrequently so gets backed up in
full but less often.

This is my initial though on the partitioning of the 60GB drive on my
Debian laptop:
      XP         -10.00GB
      boot       - 0.10GB ??
  sys 1
      root       - 0.15GB
      usr        - 2.00GB
      var        - 2.00GB
  sys 2
      root       - 0.15GB
      usr        - 2.00GB
      var        - 2.00GB
  shared
      swap       - 1.00GB
      tmp - ramfs?
      home       -10.00GB
      home2      -10.00GB
      local      -20.00GB

With this scheme I am only losing 3-5GB in order to have the parallel
distribution installed, if I am estimating the size requirements
correctly.

I'm not sure if I should have a separate /tmp filesystem, or perhaps
should just add the space to swap and use a ramfs for tmp.

I'm also not really decided if I should use a separate /boot partition
with both sets of kernels in it, or just use /boot directories in the
two root filesystems. The latter implies that one of the root filesystems
becomes special in that it will be the one pointed to by the master
boot record.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                          digbyt(at)digbyt.com
http://www.digbyt.com