Setting up an OS test box, help me with partitioning

[coolred]

I admit windows has been my only OS for quite some time. Its hard to avoid it, its everywhere. But I am tired of using it just because its everywhere. I want to start learning linux and BSD. So I got another system together here recently. Its a Biostar 200N nForce 2 based SFF, with an AMD AXP2100+ 512MB crucial PC2100, currently using onboard video, but do have a rtadeon 8500DV I could use if needed. I will at least for now be keeping windows as my OS on my main rig.

Anyways, I will likely be trying several differant flavors of linux and maybe some BSD's too. First thing I need to choose is the hard drive. I have several to choose from. One is an 80gig 8MB cache WD 7200RPM, another is a 250GB 8MB cache 7200RPM maxtor, another is an 80gig 2MB cache 5400RPM, another is an old 30gig 2MB cache 7200RPM maxtor, and finally I have 2 WD ratptors, 10,00RPM 36GB each. I was planning to use the raptors in my main machine in raid 0. But I just don't think it would benefit me that much. I am running my OS off of one on my main rig. The other I was thinking of selling, but not sure yet. I currently have the 80GB 8MB cache drive in my OS test system. I am basically just wondering if that will be enough for several differant OS's. I would think so, since they will be used for learning rather then day to day the stuff just keeps on piling up OS's. SO as long as its okay or you don't have a better suggestion, then i will just leave it in there.

Then my question question deals with partitioning of the drive. From what limited experience I have had with linux, it seems you have to setup the swap space on its own partition. Can one swap space partition be used for most if not all the OS's I plan to try, or does each need its own? I haven't fully decided what OS's exactly I will be putting on it, and I am sure as I advance thy may change. But to help out a little lets say I plan to run 6-10 OS's on this computer. So I figure with about a 2GB swap area, that leaves about 10GB per OS, should be plenty right? But that is under the assumption they can all use the single swap, if not and they each need thier own, then that would knock that down to 8-9GB per OS, still should be okay I think, right? SO how do you think I should partition it. Should I try to partition the whole drive the way I want it while installing the first OS, or should I just create the partition for that OS and leave the rest unpartitioned till I install the next OS?

So far just to give you an idea of the OS's I am thinking of right now, they are. FreeBSD, maybe also open or netBSD, Ubuntu linux, suse linux 9.1Pro, Debian or something debian based, maybe slackware, still deciding on the rest, maybe fedora, or RH, I am not sure yet. I will probablly only start of with one or 2 anyways.

So any help would be great thanks.

 

[MrChad]

Why not invest in a copy of VMWare? You can keep a single partition and save yourself a lot of headaches. Plus it's simple to backup and restore test beds as you play around.

 

[coolred]

I actually plan to get VMware, have been using an evaluational copy for a few weeks now. But I also want real world experience with some of these OS's. I am not in any way knocking VMware, its a great app, but in some cases its just not the same as installing on a real machine.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Use one OS at a time.

 

[Nothinman]

I am not in any way knocking VMware, its a great app, but in some cases its just not the same as installing on a real machine.

The only difference is the hardware it emulates, every other aspect is 100% the same because the software doesn't even know it's running in VMWare. The only thing you'll be avoiding is driver issues.

 

[Churnd]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Use one OS at a time.

So it's not possible for multiple distros to use the same SWAP partition? Or is it not possible to set up each distro with its own SWAP part. on the same HD?

 

[Nothinman]

So it's not possible for multiple distros to use the same SWAP partition? Or is it not possible to set up each distro with its own SWAP part. on the same HD?

Sure it's possible, it's even possible to share it with Windows if you really wanted to but that probably wouldn't be a good idea because that's not something that's normally done. Technically you can share swap, /boot, /home, /tmp and maybe more between distros. /boot would require a little extra care since you don't want each distro overwriting the bootloader setup at each installation.

 

[coolred]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Use one OS at a time.

Well thats just no fun, LOL. No I would prefer to have more then one OS installed at a time so I can more quickly learn the differance between them, and if I learn how to do something new in one, I can always load up another and see if it also works in another distro, or maybe see how it works differantly.


But if your all saying that the only thing I would miss while using VMware is driver conflicts/issues, then I guess I can just do that.

But I am still interested in learning how to set up the drive for that many OS's, according to nothinman, it is possible to share the same swap drive between ditros. So that was my main concern, with that out of the way I hsould be able to figure it out, at least until I can a full copy of VMware

 

[Churnd]

Your only problem is going to be configuring the bootloader. I'm going the same route soon with Mandrake and SuSE, so I'm probably gonna use LILO with Mandrake then boot to SuSE with a floppy until I get LILO configured to boot with either

 

[ColKurtz]

I'm in the exact same boat as you are, OP, only a few steps ahead (I jumped into linux 4 or 5 weeks ago).

Here's my experience and advice so far. I'm sure others more unstupider than me will give you conflicting advice and/or correct me.

First of all, yes, you can share the swap space across linux distributions (but not Windows, but you won't need to). I have FC3, Slackware, SuSE, and Mandrake all sharing one swap partition. Make the swap partition 2x the max amount of memory you might expect to have at some point down the road, not what you currently have.

As far as the HDD, it doesn't matter. Just ensure it has enough space for your goals. Plan on 5 or 6 Gb max (and that's a generous max - you can easily get away with less) per linux distribution. Also, I advise creating a 2-4GB primary as the first partition (see below) and reserve it for non-Linux, then make the rest of the drive an extended partition. This will force any new partitons to be logical. If you ever multi-boot with Windows, adding primary partitions can have unwanted effects on Windows' drive letters. Logical paritions won't have any negative effects.

In addition to the partitions I reserved for the linux distros, I also set aside 10GB for a shared EXT3 partition and a shared FAT32 partition. This was so I could share data among the different distros - so I don't have 5 separate copies of a game/movie/etc. I went with a EXT3 and FAT32 b/c I have ME/2k/XP installed as well and wanted shared info b/t Windows and Linux-es.

I also advise investing in Partition Magic. For all the research and planning I did, I still made mistakes and PMagic saved me from having to repartition and reinstall everything. This is also the reason I advise creating a 2-4GB primary partition... The only OS I could get PMagic installed on was WinME (95/98 would have worked, too). The readme seemed to indicate it would work on NT, but I got install errors installing on 2K and XP. Also, PMagic comes with BootMagic, a user-friendly boot-loader that easily allows you to boot multiple OS's while you learn the ins-and-outs of LILO/GRUB.

Good luck.

 

[coolred]

Thanks for that info guys. I don't plan to run windows at all on this machine, unless of course I use VMware, then obviously i would be running VMware through windows. But if I don't use VMware, then there will be no windows.

I kinda forgot about the bootloader. I knew linux was smart enough to recognize a windows OS already ont he drive and add it to the bootloader, I just assumed it would do the same for linux, is this wrong to think?

I think since you feel 5-6 GB is a pretty good size partition, maybe I can get away with using my 30GB, leaving the 80GB open to use in my main system as extra storage. Since I will only be using thi system as a test system, there no reason to use the raptor right? I mean if I find an OS I really like I will just install it on the raptor in my main rig. That way I can go ahead and sell the other raptor, so I can get some extra cash for another monitor.

 

[coolred]

Quick question, I was looking at some mor einfo on VMware and in a review I see that it listed red hat and suse under system requirments. I didn't know you could get it for linux. Is it differant then the one for windows? Or are they the same, but able to run on either?

 

[Nothinman]

Or are they the same, but able to run on either?

It's the same, the UI is a little different but the app works exactly the same in both OSes. I run it on Debian all the time, it runs great, infact I believe it runs better on Linux than Windows.

 

[coolred]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Or are they the same, but able to run on either?

It's the same, the UI is a little different but the app works exactly the same in both OSes. I run it on Debian all the time, it runs great, infact I believe it runs better on Linux than Windows.

Well thats good to know, hopefully that works out for me, but I am still gonna try to get the multi boot setup for now, until I can afford VMware.