How Do I Go About Installing Linux?

[saurabh kakkar]

me has 512mb ram and i rarely need to enable swap. everything runs jus fine!

yeah, swap doesn't need an exclusive partition. a file may also be used as swap. i've been using this thing since a long long time... and i've not been creating a separate partition. once u boot into linux, the contents of windows page file are useless. so i jus use this to share the pagefile.sys as linux swap file. its simple and works like a charm!

actually i dun enable it at every boot up. i jus enable the swap file as and when required.

where is the pagefile.sys located i searched my comp but no result

 

[praka123]

it will be a seperate partition for windows(if u made) or u'll find in ur windows installed partition for eg: C:\> drive

 

[eddie]

me has 512mb ram and i rarely need to enable swap. everything runs jus fine!

You should enable swap. If you are using a reasonably new kernel then you will benefit from excellent prefetch and swapiness stuff that is going in

 

[QwertyManiac]

I don't really mind putting in a GB for Swap .. What's wrong if its not being used currently, at least avoids hassles when you need it.

 

[infra_red_dude]

hmmm.. guess i'll put it in the statup script then

 

[praka123]

@infra_red_dude:swap is needed,I too thought swap is not used very often.now with system of 256 MB DDR Swap usage too is high.
In windows,it wont ask for swap file creation-it just create pagefile.sys of around 750mb right?

 

[infra_red_dude]

In windows,it wont ask for swap file creation-it just create pagefile.sys of around 750mb right?

yeah, correct! but u can modify it the way u want too!

btw, jus being curious i created a swap partition (split it for an existing not-much-used partition). set it as linux swap, and still the swap usage is nil! i dun understand why or how!

can somehere here who does some heavy work on linux system try and benchmark the results with, without and sharing of swap? i'd be very eager for the results. i cudn't find any difference.

btw, @shady_inc, i'd suggest you create 3 basic partitions (apart from swap if u wish):

1) linux root, mounted on '/' say about 5gb
2) a partition for housing boot files mounted as '/boot' of about 40mb or so
3) a partition for ur files, documents, downloads, pic and anything personal mounted as '/home' of the remaining space (~5gb)

this way u'll segregate everything on ur system u can be carefree

 

[gary4gar]

^^^^
why is a seprate a boot pariton needed?

 

[faraaz]

From what I have seen, thats where your grub.conf files and all are stored. Dunno why though...maybe Linux likes to boot up this way?? Makes editing and all easier than writing to MBR?? I dunno...I'm just a noob! >.<

 

[mehulved]

^^^^
why is a seprate a boot pariton needed?

Not needed but recommended. On many people they have different partitions for /, /boot, /home, /usr, /var, It's not unusual. There can be other directories on separate partitions too, depending on the need.

 

[gary4gar]

what are the advantages for a separate /boot partition over having them in main root file system

 

[infra_red_dude]

well, u may tinker around ur system and it *MAY* go wrong sometimes. if something happens to the grub/lilo config files ur system will be rendered non-bootable. this is in the context of a dual boot system. u'll lose the ability to boot in to the other OS too. then u'll hafta grab the installation cd and start repairing.

hafing a separate boot partition helps. all the boot config files are stored there. if something happens to ur root partition then u'll stil be able to boot into any other OS. also all ur personal files will be safe if /home is on a separate partition. problem will occur only when u try to boot into ur root partition. now in case like this, since grub is accessible, recovery mode can be initiated widout the need for install media. so its safe to segregrate things.

i follow the same rule in my windows setup too. install only the system files (windows only) on one partition. all the programs on a different, personal files on the next and entertainment in the last. it help... believe me! experienced a lot!

 

[mehulved]

Another reason you will get if you read man page of fstab and a couple of articles on fstab.

 

[infra_red_dude]

yeah.. and if u are the kind of guy who likes to test new and diff stuff and tinker then u should make a boot partition of abt 100-150mb.

 

[kalpik]

what are the advantages for a separate /boot partition over having them in main root file system

The most important reason is if you have a filesystem, from which grub cannot boot, you can create a /boot of ext2 and the have any filesystem the kernel supports for / and /home..

 

[infra_red_dude]

ok folks, help me out. i dunno if there is some problem wid my installation or not. i split a parition and made abt 600mb out of it. formatted it as linux swap and setup the fstab to use it as swap. linux perfectly activates swap partition at startup but the usage is always nil! its ZERO. why is it not using anything?

btw, in fstab i only provided the device id not UUID. is that the problem?

one more advantage of hafing a separate /home partition is that no what what distro u install or upgrade all ur personal files will be accessible. so u never lose ur files when u migrate from one distro to other or something bad happens during upgrading.

 

[praka123]

Linux kernel from 2.6.22 may show some changes,it includes a new/changed memory management subsystem which already was available with ck patches(kolivas?).this is what the page in:

Con Colivas' RSDL process scheduler, which seems to work much better than the stock scheduler according to some reports (LWN article)

*kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_21#head-1e87824aa4636cc57408ac7b268ceb44681781c9

 

[eddie]

linux perfectly activates swap partition at startup but the usage is always nil! its ZERO. why is it not using anything?

Your kernel will notice your activities and start swapping & caching according to that. You need to wait for like 2-3 hours at least

 

[Pathik]

^^ izzenit that if ur ram can manage all the tasks efficiently then there isnt any use of ur kernel using swap at all??

 

[infra_red_dude]

updated the kernel, now its using swap but the usage peaks at 10mb!!!! dunno why but till i hadn't updated the kernel swap usage was nil!

so all in all i must say to the thread starter to haf a swap partition also a separate /home partition is preferred.