parted and moving/shrinking partitions

parted and moving/shrinking partitions

[Brent Harding]

	I have three partitions on my drive I installed redhat 7.1 on. 
/dev/hdb1, /boot, about 20 megs
/dev/hdb2, a swap partition I didn't want to install, but the system
wouldn't let me go without it.
/dev/hdb3, my root partition.
What do I do with parted to make /dev/hdb3 move to where /dev/hdb2 is,
deleting /dev/hdb2 in the process? I might just turn my system in to lvm by
splitting the root partition in half with the speakup enabled parted disks
to copy one to another and make a volume group out of it, so if I have to
add space in the future, it's easy, got a 30 gig drive with win98 on it, if
I run out in linux, may be able to run parted on their too, not sure their
though.

Re: parted and moving/shrinking partitions

[Janina Sajka]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001, Brent Harding wrote:

> 	I have three partitions on my drive I installed redhat 7.1 on. 
> /dev/hdb1, /boot, about 20 megs
> /dev/hdb2, a swap partition I didn't want to install, but the system
> wouldn't let me go without it.
You want it. I promise.


> /dev/hdb3, my root partition.
> What do I do with parted to make /dev/hdb3 move to where /dev/hdb2 is,
> deleting /dev/hdb2 in the process? I might just turn my system in to lvm by
> splitting the root partition in half with the speakup enabled parted disks
> to copy one to another and make a volume group out of it, so if I have to
> add space in the future, it's easy, got a 30 gig drive with win98 on it, if
> I run out in linux, may be able to run parted on their too, not sure their
> though.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 

-- 
	
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				Technology Research and Development
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				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

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Re: parted and moving/shrinking partitions and now swap

[Frank Carmickle]

On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > /dev/hdb2, a swap partition I didn't want to install, but the system
> > wouldn't let me go without it.
> You want it. I promise.

Why?  If someone has a system that doesn't run a lot of tasks but they
have 256 mb of memory or above I don't see a reason for it.  With the
price of 256mb ddr and sdram being around $30 to $45 US there's no real
reason why a lot of people should have to be using swap.  Especially with
the state the vm system has been in in kernel releases 2.4.7 to 2.4.9.  We
are still feeling the effects in 2.4.10 and 2.4.12 a little.  Things just
swap out and they stay there.  There's one really easy way to make sure
they don't swap out.  Don't use swap!

-- 
     Frank Carmickle
phone:     412 761-9568
email:     frankiec@dryrose.com

Re: parted and moving/shrinking partitions and now swap

[Rafael Skodlar]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 12:05:16AM -0400, Frank Carmickle wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > > /dev/hdb2, a swap partition I didn't want to install, but the system
> > > wouldn't let me go without it.
> > You want it. I promise.
> 
> Why?  If someone has a system that doesn't run a lot of tasks but they
> have 256 mb of memory or above I don't see a reason for it.  With the
> price of 256mb ddr and sdram being around $30 to $45 US there's no real
> reason why a lot of people should have to be using swap.  Especially with
> the state the vm system has been in in kernel releases 2.4.7 to 2.4.9.  We
> are still feeling the effects in 2.4.10 and 2.4.12 a little.  Things just
> swap out and they stay there.  There's one really easy way to make sure
> they don't swap out.  Don't use swap!

That's something I would NOT recommend to any of my friends. System
without swap is going to fail at one point so that you won't be able to
recover.  The kernel simply expects swap to be there. Also saying that
256MB of memory is enough for most people is also nonsense. In network
environment the situation is very dynamic and each system might be used by
more than one user, either logged in directly or using some shared
services.

I see many people create /boot partition to keep the kernel only. That's
nonsense. It's unusable when any other partition gets corrupted and you 
want to boot the system to a single user mode for maintenance. 

Most default partioning setups are not effective so I suggest the 
following:

/	100 - 150 MB
/usr	900 - 3000 MB
/var	35 - 400 MB
/tmp	100 - 300 MB
/home	the rest
swap	2 times RAM

Anything else is going to be a problem sooner or later. That will keep you
out of trouble in most cases for a long time. It allows you to upgrade
without destroying your /home and you can preserve logs and other config
files if needed. The numbers depend on purpose of the system, server (WWW,
printer, NFS, Samba, etc.), office station, developer's work station, etc.

The above mentioned partition structure allows you to boot into single
user mode and fix most of the problems without a need for recovery disk
(floppy or CD).

I've done it that way many many times and it's a result of hundreds of
installations in mixed environment. Whenever other's install Linux with
default

/boot
swap
/

they regret it. No way to upgrade without tearing down everything while
all I need is tar cvfp /home/sysconfig.tar /etc /root /whatever and
preserve old configuration files and other important stuff. You have to be
careful not to reformat /home partition during new installation. Of course
real backups are still needed but /home is normaly big enough to easily
keep my config in addition to regular user's stuff.

> -- 
>      Frank Carmickle
> phone:     412 761-9568
> email:     frankiec@dryrose.com
-- 
Rafael Skodlar

Re: parted and moving/shrinking partitions and now swap

[Brent Harding]

Why then does redhat make me have it? Does getting a segmentation fault
when running a little program necessarily mean I should try it or disable
it, maybe that's why I get it once in awhile, and it is on.
I actually got the ram to increase windows performance, since I still am
stuck dual booting, but wish I'd have waited until now, probably cheaper
than when I first got the machine with it.
At 12:05 AM 10/22/01 -0400, you wrote:
>On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
>> > /dev/hdb2, a swap partition I didn't want to install, but the system
>> > wouldn't let me go without it.
>> You want it. I promise.
>
>Why?  If someone has a system that doesn't run a lot of tasks but they
>have 256 mb of memory or above I don't see a reason for it.  With the
>price of 256mb ddr and sdram being around $30 to $45 US there's no real
>reason why a lot of people should have to be using swap.  Especially with
>the state the vm system has been in in kernel releases 2.4.7 to 2.4.9.  We
>are still feeling the effects in 2.4.10 and 2.4.12 a little.  Things just
>swap out and they stay there.  There's one really easy way to make sure
>they don't swap out.  Don't use swap!
>
>-- 
>     Frank Carmickle
>phone:     412 761-9568
>email:     frankiec@dryrose.com
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>

Re: parted and moving/shrinking partitions and now swap

[Brent Harding]

Wow, I suppose, once I get lvm going, I can add space wherever I need it,
where with the default setup you just add space for everything. I never
knew it was default for linux to do the three partition only thing. With a
6 gig drive it doesn't matter, but on the other 30 gig drive I have, I'd
have to split and install linux wherever windows ends, and if it's beyond
1024 cylinders, it won't boot, and if I recompile the kernel and boot files
move out of range, I get to have fun specifying geometry parameters in lilo.
This way, /boot is at the beginning of the disk and everything else goes
out from there.
At 12:05 AM 10/22/01 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 12:05:16AM -0400, Frank Carmickle wrote:
>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
>> > > /dev/hdb2, a swap partition I didn't want to install, but the system
>> > > wouldn't let me go without it.
>> > You want it. I promise.
>> 
>> Why?  If someone has a system that doesn't run a lot of tasks but they
>> have 256 mb of memory or above I don't see a reason for it.  With the
>> price of 256mb ddr and sdram being around $30 to $45 US there's no real
>> reason why a lot of people should have to be using swap.  Especially with
>> the state the vm system has been in in kernel releases 2.4.7 to 2.4.9.  We
>> are still feeling the effects in 2.4.10 and 2.4.12 a little.  Things just
>> swap out and they stay there.  There's one really easy way to make sure
>> they don't swap out.  Don't use swap!
>
>That's something I would NOT recommend to any of my friends. System
>without swap is going to fail at one point so that you won't be able to
>recover.  The kernel simply expects swap to be there. Also saying that
>256MB of memory is enough for most people is also nonsense. In network
>environment the situation is very dynamic and each system might be used by
>more than one user, either logged in directly or using some shared
>services.
>
>I see many people create /boot partition to keep the kernel only. That's
>nonsense. It's unusable when any other partition gets corrupted and you 
>want to boot the system to a single user mode for maintenance. 
>
>Most default partioning setups are not effective so I suggest the 
>following:
>
>/	100 - 150 MB
>/usr	900 - 3000 MB
>/var	35 - 400 MB
>/tmp	100 - 300 MB
>/home	the rest
>swap	2 times RAM
>
>Anything else is going to be a problem sooner or later. That will keep you
>out of trouble in most cases for a long time. It allows you to upgrade
>without destroying your /home and you can preserve logs and other config
>files if needed. The numbers depend on purpose of the system, server (WWW,
>printer, NFS, Samba, etc.), office station, developer's work station, etc.
>
>The above mentioned partition structure allows you to boot into single
>user mode and fix most of the problems without a need for recovery disk
>(floppy or CD).
>
>I've done it that way many many times and it's a result of hundreds of
>installations in mixed environment. Whenever other's install Linux with
>default
>
>/boot
>swap
>/
>
>they regret it. No way to upgrade without tearing down everything while
>all I need is tar cvfp /home/sysconfig.tar /etc /root /whatever and
>preserve old configuration files and other important stuff. You have to be
>careful not to reformat /home partition during new installation. Of course
>real backups are still needed but /home is normaly big enough to easily
>keep my config in addition to regular user's stuff.
>
>> -- 
>>      Frank Carmickle
>> phone:     412 761-9568
>> email:     frankiec@dryrose.com
>-- 
>Rafael Skodlar
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>