Partitioning Your Hard Drive - Version 0.93+
allanadmin, fre feb 09 2007, 23:15

Partitioning Your Hard Drive - Version 0.93+
Back to Installing PCLinuxOS to a Hard Drive

You will need partitions to install PCLinuxOS. A partition is a section of the hard drive where you will install the program. You will need to decide on a plan of how you want to partition your hard drive.

If you have lots of space on your hard drive then you might want to consider three basic partions for your installation:

1. / (This is where the program files are installed).
2. swap (This is the virtual memory)
3. /home (This is the same as My Documents in Windows. This is where you will want to store your personal files).


If you have 10GB to spare, try setting this up so that you have 5GB for / and 5GB for /home. Actually you can go a little smaller so you have room for your swap. The rule of thumb for swap is that you want it to be twice the size of your actual RAM (memory). Thus if you have 512MB of RAM you will want 1024MB for swap.

If you only have 5 - 7GB for installation, then only create two partitions: swap and /. This will place /home within the partition for /.

Now that we have figured out how much space you have available and how many partitions you will need, then we need to see what we can do with the hard drive. You do not need a special program to partition your hard drive. The tools you need are right on your CD.

After you click on the "Install PCLinuxOS" icon on the desktop, the first thing you will see is a little screen that says: "Run as root - KDE su The action you requested needs root privileges. Please enter root's password below or click ignore to continue with your current privileges. And then a line with Password and a blank white box. When you see this box you will type in the default root password - root. Then click the OK button.

You'll be welcomed to the installer with the message "This wizard will help you install the live distribution." If that sounds like a good idea to you, click Next, otherwise Cancel your operation.

The next screen will show:

image


First you will have to decide whether you want to install PCLinuxOS to a normal hard drive or to a usb attached hard drive. For this tutorial we will go with a normal hard drive. Choose which applies for you. If you don't know what to do, go with the "normal hard drive" option. Click Next.

image.....


Here you get to decide how you want to use your hard drive. Hard drives are usually divided up until multiple partitions. Are you happy with yours? If you don't want to make any changes to your current set up and want to install PCLinuxOS to existing partitions, go with "Use existing partitions." If you want to use the entire disk for the PCLinuxOS installation, erasing everything currently on it - if any, go with "Erase and use entire disk". If you want to change the layout of your hard disk and changes the partitions, pick "Custom disk paritioning."

Custom Disk Paritioning

For this manual, we will pick the "Custom disk partitioning" to explain how this all works.

image .......


You will then see a series of tabs across the top. If you have more than one hard drive they will be labeled starting with hda (hard drive a) and continue with hdb (hard drive b) and so on for however many hard drives you have. If you have a USB or similar device hooked up you will also see sda to identify that device as wsell.

Windows partitions are outlined in blue. They will usually be labeled /mnt/win_c. That means the partitioning program has recognized that the partition or drive is formatted in a Windows format and mounted it (/mnt) as win_c or windows drive c. If a partition or drive is not mounted (listed as /mnt) then it is set aside and you can not look at any of the files there unless you mount it first.

Journalised FS is in a dark red or burgandy. You will see that listed as a file system type across the top. That is the type of format you will most likely want to use for your / and /home. This is a good type to use. The green identifies swap format. That is what you will need to use for your swap file. In the example above you will see a 9.65GB partition that is formatted as Journalised ext3. This is someone that has only Linux on their computer. Yours will be blue because it is Windows.

Now to get on to business:

Probably Needs Updating The information below explains the Pre 0.93a procedure. Please adapt this information to the new situation.

* Click on the drive you want to use.
* Select Resize
* Slide the rocker bar down to the size you want for your new partitions. If you have 10GB to play with, then slide the rocker down 10,000 in number. That will then give you a new partition of 10GB that you can then resize. You can resize by moving the bar with your mouse or by using the arrow keys. Using the arrow keys with the Control key will move it by chunks.
* When you have the size you want, click ok.
* A button will pop up saying "Please wait" and then "To ensure data integrity after resizing the partition(s) file system checks will be run on your next boot into Windows (TM).
* Press OK.
* Click on the gray area that you just added by reducing the size of your windows drive.
* Click on "create".
* You will now have a window that is labeled "Create a New Partition". The rocker bar should then be adjusted to the desired size. The file system type will be on Journalised FS: ext 3 unless you change it. The mount point will show up as /. Since the / already exists (on the livecd) suggest to change it to /mnt/pclinuxos, adjust the size and then click ok. (This is important otherwise the partitioning program tries to copy the existing / root partition to the newly created partition)
* Now you will repeat the process by clicking on the gray area again.
* Next you will want to create the swap partition.
* Size it down to twice your RAM. If you don't know, select a number between 512 and 1024.
* Click on the Filesystem type and select "Linux swap".
* Press OK.


If you have room for another partition then we will add one last partition - /home. We will follow the same procedures:

* Click on the gray area.
* Click the "create" button.
* Size your partition (5GB is great if you have it).
* Leave the filesystem type as Journalised FS: ext 3.
* Use the down arrow to change the mount point to /home.
* Click ok.
* It will tell you to please wait as it formats your partition.
* Press the Done button.
* It will now tell you that it is going to save your fstab modifications. Once you do that you are on your way.


You have just done the hardest step - partitioning your hard drive so you can now install PCLinuxOS

Congratulations!

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PartiTioning93