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how to partition my drive?

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DocClock aka MadClocker

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2000
Location
Stockton Cal, USA, Earth
Ok, I already know how to partition a drive, but I need to know how many and what name should I give my partitions so I can re-install at ease without loosing my data?
I understand I need a "home" partition but what else?

Thanks in advance,
Doc
 
I only do a boot and / partition, which is the minimum required. You could break of /home to help you reinstall quickly. I never reinstalled often enough that it mattered.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and swap now that Tyerker mentioned it.
 
Last edited:
I have found it can also depend on what distro you're using. I usually do the following (on a 128GB SSD)

500MB - /boot
5GB - Swap Partition
50GB - /
70GB - /home

/boot doesn't need to be any bigger than 500MB
Swap is up to your discretion if you even want to use it. I have 16GB of RAM, so I doubt I use the swap too much. But I like to have something there just in case.
Your /home directory is where all your Pictures, Music, Videos, etc go (by default, anyway) so that may likely be your largest partition.
Your root directory (or just / ) kind of depends on how many apps / games you intend to install. You can tell something like Steam to install to /home or do a secondary drive with a larger partition. But by default most programs will take up space on your root directory, so plan accordingly.
 
I do re-install frequently mostly out of inexperience and it is easier than fixing it (for now at least) I was thinking about using Tyerker's suggestion but making the / directory maybe 100-175gb and my /home around 250gb...the drive is 500gb total, so it should work right?

Then I wouldn't loose all my downloaded distro's and wallpapers if my /home folder is on a seperate artition?

Edit: I think there is a "P" missing there
 
Here is my 2 disk setup in my laptop

Code:
/dev/sdb5       9.8G  7.7G  1.6G  84% /
/dev/sdb6        12G  6.5G  4.1G  62% /home
/dev/sda5       4.9G  139M  4.5G   3% /tmp
/dev/sda7       628G  410G  186G  69% /big_space
/dev/sda6       9.7G  1.6G  7.6G  18% /var

For you, I would think you could ditch the last 3 partitions. I set this backup when wear and tear was a concern on an SSD so any parts that move a lot (like logs and temp files) I split off into their own partition
 
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