[CoLoCo] partitioning (after the fact...)

[TC]

I would be very tempted to suspect that how to partition disks can verge
on the same type of Holy War that you see when discussing distros, or
bsd vs Linux.

It depends a lot on the way you use the system.

I have a ridiculous partition table.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *         703        3134    19535040    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2               1         702     5638783+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3            3135       19457   131114497+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            3135        3256      979933+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6            3257        3864     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7            3865       19457   125250741   83  Linux


This is mostly because I have a default installation of xp that I boot
into about once every 6 months or so, I can only create it using a
recovery dvd that installs a recovery partition, and devotes the rest of
the disk to ntfs.

It's then kind of tricky to get ubuntu installed, but it works really
well when I am done.

I have /home for the reasons discussed, mostly because I like to do test
installs of the next ubuntu, and then switch back.  I can manage it
without losing user data, and even if I did, it's backed up over here:

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x522cc44c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       60801   488384032   83  Linux


Andrew wrote:
> 
> No, it really doesn't explain that in the book. In fact it only talks
> about it when your configuring a server.
> 
> It says "generally it's a good idea to have at least three seperate
> partitions seperate from the rest of the system:
> 
> x /home: where all the users files will live
> 
> x /tmp: temporary scratch space for running applications
> 
> x /var: mail spools and log files
> 
> 
> 
> If I had to guess though, it'd say it's so you can have more than one user.
> 
> (to be honest it's not that great of a book. I didn't want to buy it
> myself, so I had the library buy it :D )
> 
> The book "Beginning Ubuntu Linux" by Kier Thomas and Apress is much
> better in my opinion.
>