understanding partitioning

[Linux Tyro]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 6:34 PM, Avi Greenbury <lists at avi.co> wrote:

Linux Tyro wrote:
>
> > About how really partitioning works, in fact what exactly it is!
>
> Basically, partitioning is a way of partitioning off a hard drive into
> separate areas. Much as you might divide up a warehouse into areas to
> keep distinct sorts of stock in, you can divide up hard drives in the
> same way.
>
> A hard drive is basically a large area of storage, which
> allows the computer to set bits of it to values either of 1 or 0. This,
> fundamentally, is how the files are stored on the system. But files
> have more than just data - they have things like names, and modified
> dates and permissions. We therefore tend to use a filesystem on a
> drive.
>
> A filesystem basically sets out a standard for the way files are
> to be stored on a drive - how the filename is stored and linked to the
> file, and how the permissions work. Common filesystems in Windows are
> NTFS and FAT, and Linux tends to use ext3 or ext4. The actual mechanics
> of how they work isn't particularly important, but the reason that,
> say, Windows needs a different partition to Linux us because Windows
> assumes NTFS's way of storing permissions and other file data, and
> Linux assumes ext's. [0] You would, therefore, put Windows on an NTFS
> filesystem in one partition, and Ubuntu on an ext filesystem in another.
>
> > - What are these partitions sda1, 2, 3, ....how to know if ubuntu is
> > sda1 or sda2 or what and is it different from /home....?
> > - When I installed ubuntu 10.04 LTS, it got installed and that
> > partition is sda1/2/3/4/5 ...and upto where does this go...?
>
> In contrast to Window's way of exposing hard drives with drive letters,
> Linux lets you 'mount' any drive at any directory. To 'mount' a drive
> is to make it available under a directory. If you had a big disk full
> of music, for example, you might wish to mount it under the directory
> 'music' in your home directory, then you just go into that directory to
> access the files on the disk.
>
> /dev/ is a directory in which devices are 'kept'. To mount a drive, you
> need to specify which device you want mounted (using its /dev address)
> and which directory you want it mounted on.
>
> /dev isn't reserved for disk drives, though. Disk drives generally
> start /dev/sd nowadays.
>
> /dev/sda is the first drive, /sdv/sdb the second and so on.
>
> The partitons are then themselves denoted by letters:
>
> /dev/sda1 is the first partition on the first drive, /dev/sda4 the
> fourth. You cannot actually *do* anything to the drives with these
> addresses - if you want to get at the files on them you need to
> instruct Linux to mount them first. Fortunately, it probably already
> has.
>
> I'm not aware of a graphical way to investigate what's mounted on the
> computer, though I'm sure there is one, but you can get an idea if you
> open a terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and then enter this text and hit enter:
>
> mount
>
> You will see several virtual drives mounted (ones with lines that don't
> start '/dev/') but you should be able to pick out the ones that are
> real-life drives. The lines are of the form:
>
> /dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
>
> This is /dev/sda6 (that is, the sixth partition of the first drive)
> Mounted on / (that is, the 'root' directory, so it's where my operating
> system is)
> Of type ext3 (so the filesystem I'm using is ext3)
>
> The bits in the brackets are options for mounting, which are likely to
> be different, but are rather boring and irrelevant here anyway,
>
>
> > -LVM yet another thing, is related with what...? It is (also) a
> > partition or what....? It is sda...?
>
> LVM is rather more complicated, at least until you're happy with
> partitions and mounting and the like. Unless you've need to know and
> use it shortly, it would be beneficial to get quite comfortable with
> filesystems, partitions and the like before exploring LVM.
>
> Put simply, though, it provides a means of effectively having
> partitions whose sizes can be changed while they're in use - generally
> without LVM this is not possible.
>
> > - Mounting a partition means what, what exactly we are going to do
> > with that partition after mounting it and before mounting, was it in
> > existence?
>
> We speak of mounting drive at directories, and you make the contents
> of the drive appear as the contents of the directory. Any previous
> contents of that directory still exist, but are inaccessible while the
> drive is mounted. <https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users>
>

Thanks a lot to you. I have just started reading all this from the first
word where you started. Thx again.


-- 
Two atoms are walking along. Suddenly, one stops. The other says, "What's
wrong?" "I've lost an electron." "Are you sure?" "I'm positive!"

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