Debian GNU/Linux: Guide to Installation and Usage | Page 6

use as a DNS server *
Whether you connect to the network using Ethernet * Whether your
Ethernet interface is a PCMCIA card, and if so, the type of PCMCIA
controller you have If your only network connection is a telephone line
using PPP or an equivalent dialup connection, you don't need to worry
about getting your network set up until your system is already installed.
See section 11.1 on page [*] for information on setting up PPP under
Debian.
Partitioning Your Hard Drive
Before you install Debian on your computer, it is generally a good idea
to plan how the contents of your hard drive will be arranged. One part
of this process involves partitioning your hard drive.

Background
Partitioning your disk simply refers to the act of breaking up your disk
into sections. Each section is then independent of the others. It's
roughly equivalent to putting up walls in a house; after that, adding
furniture to one room doesn't affect any other room.
If you already have an operating system on your system (Windows 95,
Windows NT, DOS, etc.) and you want to install Debian GNU/Linux
on the same disk, you will probably need to repartition the disk. In
general, changing a partition that already has a filesystem on it will
destroy any information in that filesystem. Therefore, you should
always make backups before doing any repartitioning. Using the
analogy of the house, you would probably want to move all the
furniture out of the way before moving a wall or you risk destroying
your furniture. Luckily, there is an alternative for some users; see
section 2.3.6 on page [*] for more information.
At a bare minimum, GNU/Linux needs one partition for itself. You can
have a single partition containing the entire operating system,
applications, and your personal files. Most people choose to give
GNU/Linux more than the minimum number of partitions, however.
There are two reasons you might want to break up the filesystem into a
number of smaller partitions. The first is for safety. If something
happens to corrupt the filesystem, generally only one partition is
affected. Thus, you only have to replace (from the backups you've been
carefully keeping) a portion of your system. At the very least, you
should consider creating what is commonly called a ``root partition.''
This contains the most essential components of the system. If any other
partitions get corrupted, you can still boot into GNU/Linux to fix the
system. This can save you the trouble of having to reinstall the system
from scratch.
The second reason is generally more important in a business setting,
but it really depends on your use of the machine. Suppose something
runs out of control and starts eating disk space. If the process causing
the problem happens to have root privileges (the system keeps a
percentage of the disk away from users), you could suddenly find
yourself out of disk space. This is not good since the operating system
needs to use real files (besides swap space) for many things. It may not
even be a problem of local origin. For example, unsolicited e-mail

(``spam'') can easily fill a partition. By using more partitions, you
protect the system from many of these problems. Using e-mail as an
example again, by putting the directory /var/spool/mail on its own
partition, the bulk of the system will work even if unsolicited e-mail
fills that partition.
Another reason applies only if you have a large IDE disk drive and are
using neither LBA addressing nor overlay drivers2.2. In this case, you
will have to put the root partition into the first 1,024 cylinders of your
hard drive, usually around 524 megabytes. See section 2.3.3 on page [*]
for more information on this issue.
Most people feel that a swap partition is also a necessity, although this
isn't strictly true. ``Swap'' is scratch space for an operating system,
which allows the system to use disk storage as ``virtual memory'' in
addition to physical memory. Putting swap on a separate partition
allows Linux to make much more efficient use of it. It is possible to
force Linux to use a regular file as swap, but this is not recommended.
The only real drawback to using more partitions is that it is often
difficult to know in advance what your needs will be. If you make a
partition too small, either you will have to reinstall the system, or you
will be constantly moving things around to make room in the
undersized partition. On the other hand, if you make the partition too
big, you may be wasting space that could be used elsewhere.
Planning Use of the System
Disk space requirements and your partitioning scheme are influenced
by the type of installation you decide to create.
For your convenience, Debian offers a number