Entire Secondary-Master IDE hard disk or | /dev/hdc | | CD-ROM | |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
Entire Secondary-Slave IDE hard disk or | /dev/hdd | | CD-ROM | |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
First SCSI disk | /dev/sda |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
Second and remaining SCSI disks | /dev/sdb and so forth |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
First serial port (COM1 in other OSs) | /dev/ttyS0 |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
Second, third, etc. serial ports | /dev/ttyS1, /dev/ttyS2, etc. |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
SCSI tape units (automatic rewind) | /dev/st0, /dev/st1, etc. |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
SCSI tape units (no automatic rewind) | /dev/nst0, /dev/nst1, etc. |
|-----------------------------------------------+------------------------------| |
SCSI CD-ROMs | /dev/scd0, /dev/scd1, etc. |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The partitions on each disk are represented by appending a number to
the disk name. For example, the names hda1 and hda2 represent the
first and second partitions of the first IDE disk drive in your system.
Linux represents the primary partitions with the drive name plus the
numbers 1 through 4. For example, the first primary partition on the
first IDE drive is /dev/hda1. The logical partitions are numbered
starting at 5, so the first logical partition on that same drive is /dev/hda5.
Remember that the extended partition - that is, the primary partition
holding the logical partitions - is not usable by itself. This applies to
SCSI drives as well as IDE drives.
Let's assume you have a system with two SCSI disks, one at SCSI
address 2 and the other at SCSI address 4. The first disk (at address 2)
is then named sda and the second sdb. If the sda drive has three
partitions on it, these will be named sda1, sda2, and sda3. The same
applies to the sdb disk and its partitions. Note that if you have two
SCSI host bus adapters (i.e., controllers), the order of the drives can get
confusing. The best solution in this case is to watch the boot messages,
assuming you know the drive models.
Recommended Partitioning Scheme
As described above, you should have a separate smaller root partition
and a larger /usr partition if you have the space. For most users, the two
partitions initially mentioned are sufficient. This is especially
appropriate when you have a single small disk, because creating lots of
partitions can waste space.
In some cases, you might need a separate /usr/local partition if you plan
to install many programs that are not part of the Debian distribution. If
your machine will be a mail server, you may need to make
/var/spool/mail a separate partition. Putting /tmp on its own 20 to
32MB partition, for instance, is a good idea. If you are setting up a
server with lots of user accounts, it's generally good to have a separate,
large /home partition to store user home directories. In general, the
partitioning situation varies from computer to computer depending on
its uses.
For very complex systems, you should see the Multi Disk HOWTO. It
contains in-depth information, mostly of interest to people setting up
servers.
Swap partition sizes should also be considered. There are many views
about swap partition sizes. One rule of thumb that works well is to use
as much swap as you have system memory, although there probably
isn't much point in going over 64MB of swap for most users. It also
shouldn't be smaller than 16MB, in most cases. Of course, there are
exceptions to these rules. If you are trying to solve 10,000 simultaneous
equations on a machine with 256MB of memory, you may need a
gigabyte (or more) of swap space.
As an example, consider a machine that has 32MB of RAM and a
1.7GB IDE drive on /dev/hda. There is a 500MB partition for another
operating system on /dev/hda1. A 32MB swap partition is used on
/dev/hda3 and the rest, about 1.2GB, on /dev/hda2 is the Linux
partition.
Partitioning Prior to Installation
There are two different times that you can partition: prior to or during
the installation of Debian. If your computer will be solely dedicated to
Debian you should partition during installation as described in section
3.5 on page [*]. If you have a machine with more than one operating
system on it, you should generally let the other operating system create
its own partitions.
The following sections contain information regarding partitioning in
your native operating system prior to Debian installation. Note that
you'll have to map between how the other operating system names
partitions and how Linux names partitions; see Table 2.1 on page [*].
Partitioning from DOS or Windows
If you are manipulating existing FAT or NTFS partitions, it is
recommended that you use either the scheme below or native Windows
or DOS tools. Otherwise, it is not really necessary to partition from
DOS or Windows; the Linux partitioning tools will generally do a
better job.
Lossless Repartitioning
One
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