Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Jason Flatt <jasonflatt AT wizard.com>]

On Tuesday 10 December 2002 08:13 pm, Duane Macolm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is a bit off the topic of bugs and problems but it gives us an
> oppotunity to think kind of sideways a little.
>

In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of stuff to talk about here.  That's 
why it's called SM-Discuss and not SM-Bugs.


>
> I use my pc for work and to play around with linux. Unfortunately, when
> playing around with linux I sometimes screw my pc over and can't work.
> So I have been thinking alot about how to setup my computer so I work
> and play without jeopardizing each other.
>
> This is what I have come up with (HD = 80GB):
>
> Primary partition 1 (10GB): work partition using the stable tree of SGML
> Primary partition 2 (20GB): home partiton
> Primary partition 3 (30GB): backup partition
> Primary partition 4 (10GB): play partition 1 using stable tree of SGML
> Extended partition 5 (10GB): play partition 2 using devel tree of SGML
>

Keep in mind that there are only 4 primary partitions and that the extended 
partition counts as one of them.  What you will end up with is:
  Primary partition 1 (10GB): work partition using the stable tree of SGML
  Primary partition 2 (20GB): home partition
  Primary partition 3 (30GB): backup partition
  Extended partition 5 (20GB):
  Logical partition 6 (10GB): play partition 1 using stable tree of SGML
  Logical partition 7 (10GB): play partition 2 using devel tree of SGML


>
> I will use partition 5 to play with linux and test new spells.
> I will use partition 4 as my stable play partition and will run "sorcery
> system-update" on to ensure there are no problems before updating
> partition 1. I had a problem two days ago where I couldn't work
> yesterday because I did a "sorcery system-update" and pango wouldn't
> play nice. This would provide a way around this problem. I could also
> use this partition to test fresh installs if need be.
> I will rsync partition 1 and partition 2 to the backup partition.
>
> I was wanting advice on improvements and other peoples experience. This
> issue must have been thought about in the past and there is probably a
> "best" way to do this.
>
> Cheers, Duane.

I also have a multi-boot situation on my computer.  However, I have three 
hard 
drives (20, 30, & 40 GB), and I boot between 4 and 10 different OSs depending 
on my mood.  Most of them are Linux, but since I do computer service and 
support for a living and most of my clients run Windows, I have 2 or 3 
Windows OSs available.

I also use a boot loader (currently BootIT, but I am looking at the open 
source alternatives, like SBM, GAG, and XOSL) rather than Lilo (or Grub).  
The reasons I use a boot loader are:
  1)  I can set it up to boot to many different possible configurations of 
OSs 
and/or partitions.
  2)  I can hide OSs and partitions from each other (sometimes important 
w/Windows).
  3)  I can choose to share partitions between OSs.

For your purposes, Lilo will probably be fine and would work for me except 
for 
item #2 and I want more flexibility.  For my setup, I created a separate 24 
MB /boot partition for each Linux installation and placed all of them at the 
beginning of the drive (Lilo has a hard time booting from a partition that is 
beyond some magic number that I have forgotten).

I also placed my swap partition at the end of the drive, using all remaining 
space.  My swap partition is some odd size between 1 and 1.5 GB.

Someone mentioned that 10 GB is way too much, however if you want to cast 
something huge like OpenOffice, that extra space is necessary.  My / partion 
is 8 GB w/50% free.  Just something else to consider.

I also have a shared /var/spool/sorcery and a /var/cache/sorcery.  My spool 
directory is too small at 2.5 GB.  It is probably plenty for normal 
operations, but if I felt like summoning an entire grimoire, I would run out 
of room.  I will probably bump it up to 4 or 5 GB at some point in the 
future.  The reason I share my cache is that all of my SMGL partitions are 
configured the same way and I basically operate from the same grimoire 
w/minor variations.

Another thing I did was to setup my /home and /root directories as partitions 
right at 600 MB.  I also have a FAT32 /data directory for sharing files 
between Windows and Linux at the same size.  Those are the partitions I 
actually care about backing up, and they each will fit on a single CD.  
Actually, if I culled all the unnecessary stuff, all three would fit on a 
single CD, but that's the way it goes.  :^)  I keep most of the 30 GB drive 
as my "garbage" drive where I do things like download files to.  If I lost 
everything on that drive, it would merely be an annoyance.

Enough rambling.


-- 
Jason Flatt
Section maintainer for printer
E-mail (remove the spaces): jasonflatt @ wizard . com
E-mail (remove the spaces): jflatt @ sourcemage . org
IRC: Oadae