Is this a good setup? 100mb pri /boot 1gb swap 64gb log /home 15gb log / all using ext3. I will be using it for desktop/development purposes. I don''t think I need a /usr partition or do I? And should my / partition be bigger? 20 GB maybe? I would just make a swap, boot, and a root partition, but if it were to crash then I can try to save the /home partition. Also, when I install other distros I can just install over the root partition. Thanks.

Do you really need 1GB swap? How much ram do you have? Will the machine be used for very memory-consuming apps or just everyday desktop stuff? Personally I would suggest at most 512MB swap for desktop.
15GB for / should do fine. I have 8GB and no separate /usr partition and it works good but I don''t install an enormous amount of software. 15GB should be ok.
Will the system be used by more than one user? 64GB for a home partition seems quite a lot. Suppose you''ll want to try out another distro. So you could possibly have two linux distros sharing one home partition. I have a 30GB home partition and two extra partitions: one for my data that doesn''t belong in the home dir and another (primary) for testing out other OSes.
But again, it depends on what you want to do with the machine. I like experimenting, so I prefer more smaller partitions.

I have 512 ddr 2700 ram. Just everyday stuff unless blender, gimp, kdevelop, and some desktop programs take up much. Only one user will be using the comp.

I have tried all kinds of distros and I have finally decided on one so, I am not worried about switching. I could use a 40 GB hd for linux and a 80 GB for windows, but I the windows hd is only for games... I don''t think I will get over 40GB worth of games. I will be using linux for everything else.

What you suggest should be plenty for anything. I would give a little more to / if I were you, but I doubt it will matter.

I myself just have a single 39GB / (reiser3, 34% used) and 1GB swap. Works fine - I don''t see why partitioning everything up is so necessary.

I''ve always found separate boot partitions to be more trouble than they''re worth, and modern BIOSes won''t care a fig about where on the disk your kernel is. Just roll it into the root partition.

"Sneftel is correct, if rather vulgar." --Flarelocke

I am really not sure why your home directory is under /log...

My typical setup for this is:

1 GB swap file [0]

100MB boot

evertything else / (root)

I don''t separate the /var/log directory to a different partition unless the machine will function as a public server.


[0] With 512MB RAM you shouldn''t need a swap file, however you never know when it will come in handy. My rule-of-thumb for swap files is 2X RAM, which is 1GB in this case.

Thanks for the replies. I was also wondering which file system to go with. ReiserFS or ext 3? Not sure which one is best for regular desktop use.

Resier tends to be faster. However, Reiser vs. ext3 (vs. XFS) tends to become a flamewar on the scale of vi vs. emacs.

If you have no experience, just pick one (flip a coin). The performance is pretty close, for the most part.