George Jemmott's home on the web

Choices - reasons

Knoppix for re-partition - seems highly recommended, having the boot CD around will be nice
Debian Stable (v5.0 "Lenny") - widespread, powerful, stable, transparent, OPEN. almost went with MEPIS (Debian variant, pre-loaded, nice GUI) for the user-friendliness, but I want to get to know the man behind the curtain.

Partitioning: (info here: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/ and here http://www.debian.org/releases/3.0/i386/ch-partitioning.en.html)
- primary partitions (4 possible)
- logical partitions (sub-partitions of the one primary partition that is also called an "extended" partition) (unlimited, 63 max in linux)
- rule of thumb max 6Gb for ext2 partitions
- one big reason for *me* to partition is to pre-allocate space for stuff, so I don't use up *all* the space with temporary downloads or

other recommendations from above sources:
-For new users, personal Debian boxes, home systems, and other single-user setups, a single / partition (plus swap) is probably the easiest, simplest way to go. However, this might not be such a good idea when you have lots of disk capacity, e.g., 20GB or so. Ext2 partitions tend to perform poorly on file system integrity checking when they are larger than 6GB or so. (so use ext3)
-You might need a separate /usr/local partition if you plan to install many programs that are not part of the Debian distribution. If your machine will be a mail server, you might need to make /var/mail a separate partition. Often, putting /tmp on its own partition, for instance 20 to 50MB, is a good idea. If you are setting up a server with lots of user accounts, it's generally good to have a separate, large /home partition. In general, the partitioning situation varies from computer to computer depending on its uses. separate /usr/local - pass for now. /var separate - pas for now. /tmp, see next rec.
-Some programs write temporary data files here. Usually, they are quite small. However, if you run computationally intensive jobs, like science or engineering applications, hundreds of megabytes could be required for brief periods of time. In this case, keep /tmp in a different partition than /.
-For multi-user systems or systems with lots of disk, it's best to put /usr, /var, /tmp, and /home each on their own partitions separate from the / partition.
-For performance it is useful to keep files of different lifetimes on different partitions.

x bin Essential command binaries
x boot Static files of the boot loader
x dev Device files
x etc Host-specific system configuration
home User home directories
x lib Essential shared libraries and kernel modules
mnt Mount point for mounting a file system temporarily
proc Virtual directory for system information
x root Home directory for the root user
x sbin Essential system binaries
x tmp Temporary files
x usr Secondary hierarchy
x var Variable data
opt Add-on application software packages

so I'll have:
1) root partition for the system files (500 Mb?) - primary partition (500 Mb, b/c I've seen others with just / at 200Mb, plus the /root profile
---/etc, /bin, /sbin, /lib and /dev (necessary for boot)
---/root (http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2008/02/11/partition-hard-drive-for... says “/root” – not to be confused with “root”, it is usually the home directory for the root user (remember the note above). It typically contains installation logs and a few scripts used by the system administrator. It is a good idea to at least make sure it is on the root partition.
2) other stuff (?Gb) - (extended) primary partition
-/boot (50 Mb) - logical partition (people say 10 Mb is plenty, so 50 must be plenty for 5 Linuxes on one machine, more here: http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2007/11/02/why-people-insist-on-using-boot including I agree with Donnie. It’s useful for system rescue, but I also like running with a separate /boot because (on my laptop at least) I always triple, or even quad-boot. I occasionally like to try out a new distro, installing it on a spare partition. Keeping a single /boot, with folders for the appropriate distro and its kernel/files, helps keep everything organized. Multiple /boot directories for all those distros would be a PITA to manage! and Doh, you have to have a separate /boot if you want to encrypt your /. and The average user might not need or want to deal with a separate /boot, but the service technician or Linux-knowledgeable friend trying to fix a broken system might benefit from having a separate boot partition.)
-swap space (1Gb) - logical partition
-short term stuff (800Mb) - logical partition
---/var (sites mentioned that var needs to be separate from / if running a server, though it seems like it changes a lot, so I'm going to put it somewhere other than root. ranges from 10-300 Mb)
---/tmp (can be as high as 500Mb using octave and similar, and from http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/partitioning-scheme-42..., )
-medium-term stuff (6 Gb) - logical partition (note that I can separate this into two logical partitions later if necessary)
---/home - "my documents" other than long-term storage
---/usr - "program files" and "documents and settings" other than my documents all user programs (/usr/bin), libraries (/usr/lib), documentation (/usr/share/doc), etc., are in this directory. This part of the file system needs most of the space. You should provide at least 500 MB of disk space. If you want to install more packages you should increase the amount of space you give this directory. Also, You might need a separate /usr/local partition if you plan to install many programs that are not part of the Debian distribution. I'll pass on that for now.
3)Windows NTFS... - primary partition (without windows here, or if I had more disk space, this would be a primary partition called "storage" for large amounts of long-term stuff I want to keep, that doesn't move much (little/no fragmentation, no need to write around fragmented crap), like photos). For now, use the NTFS partition for this crap until I ditch windows entirely or get a new computer.

For example, files in /bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/bin and similar directories are likely to have a very long lifetime: many months and above. Files in /home are likely to have a medium lifetime: several weeks or so. File in /var are usually short lived: Almost no file in /var/spool/news will remain longer than a few days, files in /var/spool/lpd measure their lifetime in minutes or less.

Obstacles:
Debian Installer does not work with wi-fi card.
- try this installing from windows thing?

"If you're looking for an easy install, your best bet is to buy, borrow, beg, steal, or download a set of installation disks. Quoting the Installing Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 manual:

Get a set of Debian GNU/Linux CDs. Boot off them if you can."

Project Status updates:
2010-01-10 02:53 Italy time
Worked like a freaking charm. All is up, I can boot into Debian, Windows, or MEPIS (the best), and MEPIS is able to see everything - the internet, my drives, etc.

Oh, one difficulty I might document and submit to MEPIS for fixing is that of seeing various partitions and drives. My external drive showed up famously, including a shortcut on the desktop, with the simple elegance of a Mac. However my normal partitions are tricky to find unless you know about mounting drives. Wait, no, I'm just dumb and didn't click on "My Computer"/"Storage Media". There they all are. And they mount themselves automatically when you click on them. OK, this OS is magical.

I think that's all for tonight. Tomorrow I'll start tricking MEPIS out so I can work efficiently in it (Audacity? A shortcut for the run dialog box? oop, already found it. alt+F2. F4 gets me the terminal, but only if a Konquerer (explorer :) ) window is already open... Time to do some reading: http://downloads.techrepublic.com.com/abstract.aspx?docid=295612

2010-01-10 02:23 Italy time
Since I can post in real time, *while I'm installing*, I might as well.

I have just been informed If you choose to install GRUB at root instead of MBR, then GRUB will be installed at the beginning of the root partition. In most cases, this will allow you to start GRUB from a third party bootloader. This option is for experts only. I'm not an expert by any stretch, but I'm going to try this anyway. Some guy on the internet (http://www.go2linux.org/dual-boot-two-linux-distros-debian-and-mandriva, interpreted loosely) said it wasn't too hard... we'll see how hard I fail. If there aren't any posts for a while, we can assume it was pretty hard.

2010-01-10 02:16 Italy time
Linux >>>> Windows.
Not only, while installing SimplyMEPIS did I not have to install drivers, I'm *currently* installing MEPIS, while typing on the internet, in Firefox, through wi-fi, without having installed anything. At all. The entire OS - including wi-fi drivers (not included in Windows XP), re-partitioning software (Partition Magic's equal, but free), Firefox, and more - just booted off the CD and is installing itself on the hard drive as I type this on the internet. Holy monkeys. Why does Windows suck so much?

2010-01-09 20:57 Italy time
Decided that I'm not likely to get Debian "Lenny" up and running (X-window, wi-fi) on my own any time soon. Oh, for a working ethernet connection... Anyway, going to install MEPIS instead, and slowly work on the regular debian install. It'll be easier for several reasons. MEPIS is built on Debian, so I'll slowly learn the lingo, file structure, etc. Also, MEPIS should boot a hell of a lot faster than windows, so switching back and forth for downloading stuff in MEPIS and transferring it over for install to Debian should be less time consuming.

Steps: (largely from http://www.go2linux.org/dual-boot-two-linux-distros-debian-and-mandriva, interpreted loosely)
- make sure I can edit grub's /boot/grub/menu.lst
= - I edited it just fine, added a boot menu option for
= - looking in menu.lst, it seems that it might be able to update itself, with something called update-grub script...
- while installing mepis, re-size my current "liquid" partition, making a 3.5 Gb partition for the MEPIS /root directory. Thus I'll have:
FOR NOW (I don't need share for transfer b/t windows and linux because MEPIS can see everything with no effort... what an amazing thing):
ok? primary?
+ + hda2 - linuxsys, 500Mb debian install
+ + hda3 - extended, leave it
+ - hda5 - /boot, leave it
+ - hda6 - swap, leave it
+ - hda7 - temp, leave it
- - hda8 - liquid, sac. 2 Gb of it (at the end to leave contiguous space with next section) combine with hda9 to make...
- - hda9 - delete FAT32 partition, leave space for hda4
- + hda4 - doesn't exist yet, create it from 2Gb at the end of hda8(liquid) (you'll have to resize hda3, the main extended partition it belongs to) and 2Gb from hda9.
+ + hda1 - windows partition, 45Gb or so

Later I can make more space for debian if necessary.
NB!!! Debian dumped 100Mb ish of crap (including folders like bin, games, include, lib, local, sbin, share, src) on hda8("liquid"), which I was going to use as the /home partition of MEPIS as well... I hope that doesn't cause any problems. I guess we'll see. Anyway, at the moment hda2 (500Mb "linuxsys" has Debian's /home. This will cause a problem later on... guess I'll fix it then.)

- that done, install MEPIS on hda4, making sure to install grub on hda4 (which will be chiainloader +1 ed from the MBR grub, installed by Debian), and making sure to put /home on hda8 and /root on /hda4
- edit Debian's grub menu.lts file? (I want (hd0,x), but what is x? 3? (the 4th partition?) but they're out of order on the disk...
- if I fail to properly edit Debian's grub menu.lts file, all I have to do is re-install MEPIS, installing its grub on the MBR, then re-install debian some other time and edit MEPIS's grub menu file.

2010-01-06 17:13 Italy time
Most of a day wasted on partition resizing. Should have just ditched windows entirely or reinstalled. There's nothing I can't re-download. Anyway, problems (with solutions!) were:
- copied Knoppix to CD by writing files to a CD, rather than copying the image (.iso) file. I guess it matters to make it bootable.
+ http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm is an awesome shell extension that adds "write this iso file to cd" to your right-click menu
- tried GParted LiveCD. Didn't work. Claimed, after a second of checking, that my hard drive had a critically physically damaged sector (which no other utilities have mentioned)
+ give up on GParted
- Knoppix started up in German. fiddled around in german menus for a while...
+ when knoppix first starts (Before timing out), type "knoppix lang=en" at the "boot:" prompt
- mouse issues with knoppix
+ type "knoppix lang=en 4" to set it to run-mode 4, which is text-only.
- command cited on website, qtparted, doesn't work. dig around on forums for a while, find that in Knoppix 6, qtparted has been replaced with "parted"...which doesn't work on NTFS.
+ download Knoppix 5 or earlier...

That's what I would have done, but I ran out of blank CDs and no longer feel like figuring out how to boot knoppix off of a USB key, so I'm going to borrow a copy of Partition Magic. From the internet. I'll give it back.

PACKAGES TO INSTALL:
Italian Language support (separate install for Firefox)... name?
Comix

http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html - well written info on mounting and auto-mounting