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David B
Asked: 2010-12-31 10:38:32 +0800 CST

Netbook partitioning scheme suggestions

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I got a new Asus EEE PC 1015PEM with 2GB RAM and a 250GB HD.

After playing with the netbook edition a little, I would like to install the desktop edition I'm used to. In addition to Ubuntu partition(s), I would like to have one separate partition for data (documents, music, etc.), so I could try other OSs in the future without losing the data.

What partition scheme would you recommend? I usually like to let the installation do it by itself, but when I try to that I can only use the entire disk, so I don't get the desired data partition.

I wish there was a way to see the recommended default partitioning scheme, then just tweak it a bit to fit your needs (instead of building one from scratch).

So, how would you recommend I partition my HD? Please be specific since I never manually partitioned before.

Thanks!

partitioning installation

4 Answers

  1. During the installation, did you check the Advanced Settings? That should allow you to manually edit the Partition.

    http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome

    That should help you.

    EDIT:

    Allocate 240GBs to your Home Partition and 10GB to your File System Partition. You can use Ext3 if you'd like, but I prefer Ext4.

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  2. Out put from my system
    $ df -h
    Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda1 184M 21M 154M 12% /boot
    /dev/sda3 47G 37G 11G 79% /home/aaron/xp
    /dev/sda5 12G 9.7G 1.4G 89% /
    /dev/sda6 12G 149M 11G 2% /home/aaron/ort
    /dev/sda7 193G 162G 22G 89% /home

    separate /boot partition so that I set up grup once to boot to many os after installing windows this has to be fixed google grup-update. no that big only 190mb see that ony 12% is used.

    I like to have my [xp,other os] partition as a primary partition the last one available is the third partition the fourth partition will be my extended partition which is the entire remaining disk space.

    You need to take into account how much space you want available to the other OS. Windows can not currently read ext4 partitions that well. People are working on that.

    I have a second root partition set up as ort(other root). So when I upgrade I do a clean install. I don't want to get burned by having an unbootable system. So I can always boot back to the previous system. I can also copy my /etc/* config files that I am rather attached to into the new system or use them as a reference if I am setting up a new system.

    You should also have swap partition about the same size as your ram up to a max of about 4 Gigs. It would also depend on how you use your system. Even on some of my smaller machines with 2Gigs I never really start using my swap partition so about 2Gigs would be a lot.

    Lastly I make home the rest of the remaining disk space. If you have a boot disk you can always boot up into it and resize you partitions later. You can't change the order of the partitions with out deleting them. So if you just shrink your home partition and add extra partitions after that. Make suer you have created and extend partition other wise you are limited to 4 partitions.

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  3. I would recommend the following configuration

    enter image description here

    A separate partition for home enables you to later install other os without destroying your data.

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    • primary 25 GB - to play with windows (for example when Win8 comes) - but can put some Linux distro to play with
    • extended 2 GB - swap
    • extended 15 GB - /
    • extended 180 GB - /home
    • free - for new oses ~25 GB can be formatted with Linux FS to keep data temporary
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