Re: Illogical drives?
On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 11:23:22AM -0600, postid wrote:
> Greetings:
>
> Thank you all for your explanations and patience. I've done some
> more reading, though I'm not sure that I completely understand.
>
> Here's what I think I'm hearing: When I look at a directory I'm
> looking at a file system, not necessarily a list of physical
> locations. But on the other hand, the partitions are
> specific-sized containers where parts of the file system reside.
> The file system directory is a like an address book listing the
> members of a family in a genealogical tree and indicating how
> they're tied into the system in a heirarchically connected
> telephone conference call. The partitions are their actual
> locations (the homes where they reside at a physical address). Am
> I understanding that correctly or am I still not getting it?
>
> Here's my setup:
>
> #1 primary 19.0 GB ntfs
> #2 primary 6.0 GB B F ext3 /
> #5 logical 1.0 GB F swap swap
> #6 logical 14.0 GB F ext3 /home
>
> I'm beginning to think that I need more space for hda2, which is
> /. I only have the Gnome metapackage loaded and I've used up a
> couple of gig.
>
> I'm tempted to use gparted to resize some partitions, shrinking
> hda1 and enlarging hda2 and hda6. I can always just reinstall if
> I really mess things up. And I suppose that losing Windows 2000
> wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. There's no data
> there, just programs. I'm either learning a lot or getting
> reckless. ;-)
Just for grins here's another take on it.
mike@/deb40a:~> mount
/dev/hda1 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc, devpts & usbfs entries snipped
/dev/hda2 on /c type msdos (ro)
/dev/hda5 on /d type msdos (ro)
/dev/hda6 on /dlnx type umsdos (ro)
/dev/hda7 on /e type msdos (ro)
/dev/hda8 on /f type msdos (ro)
/dev/hda9 on /g type msdos (ro)
/dev/hdc1 on /40GP1 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc2 on /slak70 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc3 on /mc type ext2 (rw)
/dev/hdc5 on /rh6 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc6 on /deb30 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc7 on /rh5 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc8 on /deb30b type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc9 on /opt type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc10 on /deb31 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc11 on /slak11 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc12 on /rh62 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc13 on /slak11CDs type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc14 on /deb40 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc15 on /40GP15 type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc16 on /deb31CDs type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc17 on /deb31b type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc18 on /deb40pkgs type ext2 (ro)
/dev/hdc19 on /dld_pkgs type ext2 (rw)
/dev/hdc20 on /mcPrime type ext2 (ro)
Swap is on hdc 21 c. 1.5GB WAY more than I'll ever need but the leftovers
after creating 2GB partitions.
The reason I've chosen 2GB is that until I ran into Redhat 7.0 every OS
I installed would fit in 2GB. The flexability this gives makes it worth
the initial trouble to me. You'll note deb30, deb30b, deb31 & deb31b,
they're totally independent installations of Woody and Sarge. When I
thought deb30 was compromised I simply moved to another partition and
reinstalled leaving the supposedly compromised installation inplace for
study. deb31 & 31b came from wanting to try different things without
the risk of breaking a working system I depend on for day-to-day things
like stock quotes and email. rh5, rh6, rh62 are versions of RedHat as
slak70 & 11 are versions of Slackware. deb40a grew out of the realization
that if hdc died but hda didn't I could still have a working linux. If
hda dies I'll have to rebuild it but since it's all backed up on hdc that
won't be as much of a problem. mc & mcPrime are simply rsync'd clones.
mc is where I keep all my data and is available from which ever OS I
boot. hda is all DOS stuff and me being old fashioned I still boot into DOS
and use loadlin to launch Linux.
I'm not going to suggest you install all these different versions of Linux
but if you are curious like me having your drive broken into many partitions
gives you the opportunity to explore without having to disturb your working
system.
I have Win2K on another computer which is necessary for work and I just
checked it's disk usage. The OS and apps takes up about 2.4GB here so I
suspect you could trim your hda to 4-6GB and never need to change it. If
you start filling it up with MP3s or pictures just format another partition
ntsf and move them there and Windows will see them. BTW, format from windows.
The last time I installed FreeBSD or Solaris they required primary partitions
on hda1 so 3 primaries and one extended broken into logical partitions is
the way to go IMHO. The extended partition needs to be last.
/a, /b, /c, ..., /rh5, ..., /deb40, ... are all directories in each Linux
installation. They are mount points for the various partitions/file systems
just like your / and /home. Until something is mounted on them they are
simply empty directories.
One other point I feel compelled to make is that this is a single user
system/computer and there may be reasons I am unaware of why this wouldn't
be advisable in an enterprise setting.
HTH,
Mike
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