Partition/File System Question

[TheChronoRogue]

I want to dual boot my computer in Linux and XP. I am going to partition my drive so that I Linux and XP each get their own OS partition and Apps Partition. Also I am going to make a swap partition for Linux. Lastly, I am going to make a Data partition to be shared among the two OSs

That gives 3 Linux Partitions, 2 XP Partitions, and 1 Shared Data Partition. First off, is this the best way to do this or is there a better scheme, in your opinion, out there? Secondly what file system should the data partition be? I was thinking FAT32, but I was wondering if there was a better stable FS that both XP and Linux can read and write to.

Thanks for your help.

[EvilRick]

FAT32 would be your best bet w/ *nix. I believe there are ways to get *nix to write to NTFS, but it'll hose it.

How big a HDD are you going to use? You'd probably get better performance using 2 HDD's.

Here's my current setup . . .

IDE0 - 512MB Linux Swap
IDE0 - 1.5GB Linux /tmp ext3
IDE0 - 6.xGB WinXPPro NTFS

IDE1 - 2GB Windows \TEMP (swap file located here as well) NTFS
IDE1 - 64MB Linux /boot ext3
IDE1 - 6.xGB Linux / ext3

RAID0 - 40GB Windows & Linux \DATA FAT32

By having the swap for each OS on different HDD's, you get a bit of performance gain.

[TheChronoRogue]

Im doing this on a laptop, so I only have a single 80gb drive. I already checked compatibility and its gunna work.

I was also talking to some friends and they said that for XP you really dont need a seperate Boot/Apps Partitions So heres what I was thinking.

35 GB - NTFS - XP Boot/Apps
1 GB - NTFS - XP Swap

20 GB - FAT32 - Data

1 GB - EXT3 - Debian 3.0r2 Boot (Is this the right size for a Boot Paritition?)
** GB - EXT3 - Linux Apps
1 GB - EXT3 - Linux Swap

The left off will go to the Linux Apps Section, should be 22GB in theory, but its always less then its suppose to be, right?

[Siliconjunkie]

Its generally a good idea on linux to create a few partitions, here is what one of mine looks like (actually FreeBSD but you get the idea):

Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/ad4s1a 247 143 84 63% /
devfs 0 0 0 100% /dev
/dev/ad4s1e 247 0 227 0% /tmp
/dev/ad4s1f 15600 5461 8891 38% /usr
/dev/ad4s1d 247 16 211 7% /var

This will keep a full file system from halting the system, either from logs or from users not paying attention.

[EvilRick]

Make sure you put the /boot close to the beginning of the drive and it only needs to be about 64MB's. Actually way smaller than that, but 64MB's is safe.

Depending on which OS you plan on spending the most time in, I'd put that one's swap partition at the beginning.

1GB XP Swap FAT32 (I'd also use this as your \TEMP directory and I'd only use a 512MB swapfile, FAT32 because it will perform better at the smaller size)
64MB ext3 Linux /boot
512MB Linux swap (I still don't think anything over 512MB's is effecient)
8-10GB XP NTFS (If you're a gamer, go bigger)
8-10GB Linux / ext3 (break it up into other /'s if you want as suggested by SJ)
?GB's DATA FAT32(for Linux and XP both)

Give that a try and see if you like it.

[TheChronoRogue]

Im kinda new to Linux, so what do the different partitions var, usr, and temp do?

New Scheme (In This Order):
30 GB - NTFS - XP Boot/Apps
.5 GB - NTFS - XP Swap

~0 GB - EXT3 - Debian 3.0r2 Boot
~19 GB - EXT3 - Linux Apps (What else should I split this into?)
.5 GB - EXT3 - Linux Swap

30 GB - FAT32 - Data

Are the swaps in the right place? What would putting them at the beginning of the drive do vs putting them near the rest of the respective OSs files?

[Siliconjunkie]

mount points in linux are kina a hard thing to grasp. The best way to think of them is a directory off of the root of the drive.

/var is where logs, spooled items like mail and print jobs are kept
/usr is where applications live (and user files on BSD, /home is linked here)
/tmp is just that temp space. Some security nuts will say to put /tmp on its on partition and make it so you cannot execute anything on it, but for a singleuser desktop this is overkill.

Some versions of RedHat will complain with less that 250 meg for /boot but you can get away with less as Rick said. But, with huge drives, this is a negligble difference.

[TheChronoRogue]

As posted above, I am going to be using Debian 3.0r2. Will I have a problem with that? Also, I am going to use Partition Magic to do this. Should I leave the Linux Partitions as blank space and let the install handle it or should I pre partition it before the install?

[Siliconjunkie]

I let the installer create them/make them with it. Linux and BSD have near identical filesystems so you should be good there. For your first go round, you may want to do what the installer suggests.