how should i partition my HD (presistent Home, Swap).

Hi, first of all just wanted to say that i am brand new to linux and knoppix, just started running it last night, and i am amazed with the speed even from just the cd. i've been using windows for awhile now, and (knock on wood) can pretty much handle anything windows throws at me (which is a lot). but knoppix is a whole other can of worms as i tested last night. so just wanted to consult everyone here, and get some clarification.
after using knoppix straight off the cd, i decided that i am def not ready to make that jump to a HD install just yet, esp. with just one HD, i have no idea how to work with bootloaders and anything outside of windows. but i still want to maximize the performance off the cd. so i followed the advice of some others on this site and partitoned up my drive some more. i have a HP, so it has a 120gb, which is cut up into 2 chunks factory standard. a 6gb FAT32 restore partiton, and a 105gb NTFS partiton. i have about 35 gb left on the NTFS partition left. so i went into partitionmagic (i know people here are against it for installing, but i am just using it to make space.) and cut up the NTFS partition some more to get this:

1. 6gb FAT32 recovery partition (didnt want to or need to mess with this)
2. 102gb NTFS partition (main partition, i took off 3 gb)
3. 1gb Linux Ext3 partition (plan to use this as my Persistent home)
4. 1gb Linux Swap partition (from what i understand, this would be used in conjecture with the ram fro more swap space)
5. 1gb FAT32 partition (for generally saving files like docs that can be used/edited in between the 2 OSs)

i pretty much followed someone else's guideline on this forum for setting these last 3 partitions up. i dont really know how much space each partition should have, this is where i am looking for advice, i can always increase any of the partitions by cutting into the other ones. i just want to have a more presistent OS than just a Live CD, but i am not quite ready to install anything yet. so please give me any advice you have on optimizing the Live CD to get the max performance. and i also need any help i can get with the bootfrom= and home= cheatcodes. thanks in advance.

-george

Just on your scheme,

3 Gb total for Linux. Not much. If you have a lot of ram, like around 1Gb, you will probably find that you don't use much swap, if any. I'd make a 400/500Mb swap at (3), then use (4) and (5) as a Linux filesystem partition. As you already have a 6Gb fat32 partition at the beginning, couldn't you use that to transfer files with. But then, i don't know a lot about HP systems. Do they use a hidden partition or some form of "disk overlay" technique. If so, make sure you have some means of replacing/fixing that, in case you ever should.

I think the "home=" switch allows you to point it to a directory on your hdd that will be a dedicated "home" directory, (environmen, configs).You will need to have something installed though, to use that. You can create a floppy image that can be loaded as part of the running ramdisk image, which can also become a dedicated (of soughts) "home" directory. But you are limited to what you can fit on a floppy. And you need to unpack the floppy image, then repack to do edits/additions to it.

I'm not sure if it would go ...

home=/dev/hdb6/home/blah

or

home=/home/blah

The later being a mounted OS running when you do the LiveCD. The docs on the cd should reveal the correct syntax though. And a search on "cheatcodes" brings up 4 pages, so it should be there somewhere :)

As you seem to have only a small amount of disk space to experment with, why not just get a second drive and devote that to Linux/knoppix. A dual boot isn't that hard to setup. As long as backups are made of your mbr etc, before changes are made, not much problem should arise. Most people get into problems by doing something incorrectly, then not having a working backup (boot floppy) to restore with.

Thats basically why i asked about a possible hidden first partition or a disk overly set up. I think "Del" do that sometimes, which can catch people unawares.


I wonder if you could use the 1Gb as a home partition. With out having to mount it any where. Though, i would think it would need to be associated with some Live Filesystem during a LiveCD run, to be visible. Mabe knoppix will mount it to its' ramdisk image ???



jm
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