How should I partition my hd before installing Puppy?

Booting, installing, newbie
Post Reply
Message
Author
jhsu
Posts: 137
Joined: Fri 02 Mar 2007, 04:52

How should I partition my hd before installing Puppy?

#1 Post by jhsu »

I'm trying to install Puppy Linux 1.0.8 on my hard drive. I have a completely free hard drive, because I bought this cheap used desktop computer specifically for trying out Linux. I don't plan to dual boot. Oh, and I plan to upgrade to a newer version of Puppy Linux eventually anyway, and the few files I wanted to save area already backed up on CDRW. Therefore, now is a good time for me to mess around with partitions.

The first step is setting up the partitions, something I always counted on Windows (or Fedora Core 1 recently) to do for me automatically. Now I'm trying to do it with manually with cfdisk.

I understand that there are several necessary partitions. One is the swap partition, which I understand must be type 0x82. Since I have 256 MB of RAM, I'm allocating 512 MB to it. From what I've read, I can make this a primary or logical partition. Under what circumstances should this be a primary partition, and under what circumstances should this be a logical partition? I understand that the swap partition can be anywhere on the disk but certain locations are more optimal (for speed) than others.

I understand that another partition I need is a boot partition. I understand that all boot partitions must be within the first 1024 sectors of the hard drive and a primary partition. I understand that for Linux, the type must be 0x83. But what size should a boot partition be? The things I've read don't make it clear.

Do I need additional partitions? If so, where should they be located, should they be primary or logical, and what size should they be?

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

Look in Control Panel for the GParted partition manager. It should be easier to use than cfdisk. For now, make one big ext2 primary partition and flag it bootable. You don't need a swap partition - Puppy will automatically make a swapfile for you.

Since you plan to upgrade your Puppy version soon, the easiest setup is a so-called frugal install where you just copy the four core Puppy files from the CD to the root of the hard drive. You also need to put a bootloader on the MBR of the hard drive. In Setup, you will find the Puppy Universal Installer. However, it can be a bit confusing, especially when it gets to the bootloader part.

Instead, you may want to use the manual procedure described part way down the following thread. It uses a CD to boot your hard drive. Once you have this working, you can investigate how to boot directly from your hard drive or how to further partition the drive.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 6&start=15

Bruce B

#3 Post by Bruce B »

I don't believe 1.08 has gparted

I do believe 1.08 only supports up to 9 partitions per drive or it goes nuts.

I often have up to 9 partitions on a drive. If you want 8 or 9 it gets tricky how to do it. I'll be glad to explain a technique I use.

Also, the 1024 cylinder limit doesn't affect the booting of Linux. Maybe it would if you put GRUB on the superblock, I've never done that so I don't know.

Otherwise the basic procedure is use cfdisk to make the partitions and formatting utilities to format the partitions.

Most formatting utilities can be discovered by typing

mk

then hit the tab key twice, it will display the utilities and the names are intuitive.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

I missed the bit about 1.08. In which case, I would recommend you get the standalone Gparted Live CD here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=173828

This is an excellent tool for setting up partitions.

User avatar
Flash
Official Dog Handler
Posts: 13071
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

#5 Post by Flash »

jhsu, this subject has been revisited many times in the Puppy forum. The concensus seems to be that having a "system" partition for the OS and a separate partition for each user is a good idea. That way, when you upgrade to a new version of Puppy, or change something that might mess up the system partition (you did say you're experimenting) you don't risk losing the stuff in the other partitions.

rcrsn51, are you sure Puppy automatically creates a swap partition? I've never installed Puppy to a hard drive. I know Puppy automatically uses a swap partition if it finds one.

I'd like to point out that if the computer has a DVD burner, running Puppy from a multisession DVD is an option worth exploring. You can still save stuff to a hard drive, but the OS, with all your settings and installed programs, resides on the DVD. There's no GRUB to configure, and upgrading is as easy as booting a new DVD. Puppy was designed to be run from a CD by a single user, so multisession DVD is the most natural way to use it.
[url=http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69321][color=blue]Puppy Help 101 - an interactive tutorial for Lupu 5.25[/color][/url]

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#6 Post by rcrsn51 »

Not a swap partition - a swap file. I have only ever used the 2.x series but Puppy has always done this automatically with a frugal install

User avatar
Flash
Official Dog Handler
Posts: 13071
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

#7 Post by Flash »

Ah, so. Thank you.

Post Reply