Hard Drive Partitions for Linux Mandrake

[newbie~wan]

With as cheap as CD-Rs are these days, I would back up those media files to CD.

Mandrake (and almost all distros I think) come w/ a resizing utility that works well because linux people realize that most people will probably be using a drive is formatted in one partition (contains windoze obviously) and also that most people aren't willing to scrap windows.

Can you trust the utility to keep ur data, almost definitely. But imagine if you lost all that data.........far bigger deal that reinstalling an OS.

[lost-and-found]

imagine if you lost all that data

NOOOOOO....I must turn off my brain before...<goes down on the floor screaming in pain and agony>


p.s. I'm writing in this thread while my teacher is walking up and down the isles....I am in ROP Bussiness Procedures and Technology right now...

Where's you're sense of adventure man?!

[lost-and-found]

One more question.

Why do I need 3 partitions. WHat do I put in the / partition the /home partition and the /usr?


WHere do I place all of my movies and mp3s?

[Praetorian]

Okay. Actually 4 partitions.

/ (install directory for Mandrake. Anywhere from 300mb to 1gb)
/swap (depending on amount of ram in your system. Say you've got at least 64mb of ram, create a 256mb swap.
/home (home directory. user information, program settings, and your files are stored here)
/usr (apps and such)

You'd want to store all your mp3's and movies in /home under the directory for your username. This way they aren't in the way of any files and you dont really have to worry about accidently deleteing something. I hope I made this clear

[lost-and-found]

Thanks. It is clear now. I should be able to still acess them from WIndowz just in case, right?

[Praetorian]

Windows can't read Linux file systems. The only way you might be able to access Linux is to put it on a fat16 partiton (not very common). I think you can access Windows from Linux though. I've never tried that so I couldn't help ya.

[lost]

linux can mount a windows partition with out problems. you can even set this up during install oops brain fart madrake does this automatically during install

[lost-and-found]

TEll me if this should work. I used Partition magic to create 8GB Linux Logical partition and a 250MB Swap File Partition. (I used the wizards).

Should this work?

Thanks for answering my annoying questions, but I really want to get Linux to work good.

[Praetorian]

Should work, just specify what goes on each partition. I don't see why you didn't use Mandrake's graphical partition manager. How much ram is in your system?