VanLUG Email Archive
William McGrath (wmcgrath@interchange.ubc.ca)
Wed, 12 May 1999 19:30:11 -0700 (PDT)
Ok, first off hello, everyone, good to be here.
I'm setting up a standard linux with a second set of partitions for a
second linux which will allow me to experiment, test, try out new things
without compromising the first system. (Yes, an optimist!) I think that if
I do this right I may be able to eventually run the box as a three or four
disk system. (Drool!) First off though I'll be using the other disks for
backup. (Yes, a pessimist!)
So firstly, since I will not be using the two systems at the same
time, can I re-use the swap partition of one linux distribution as the
swap partition of another distribution? In other words is there some
compatibility between distributions?
Secondly, can I use the subdirectories tmp and var, each on their
own partition, in the same way? I believe they are cleared at boot.
Thirdly, what about a home subdirectory on its own partition. Will
I be able to share data between systems? All told this will 'save' me
200mb of disk.
Finally, when multiple systems are installed on the same disk, how
important is it for partitions/directories of a given system to be
adjacent to one another and thereby prevent unnecessary seeking across hundreds,
even thousands of megabytes of empty or otherwise allocated disk space.
Current wisdom seems to favor positioning partitions on the disk to
optimize transfer/seek time characteristics of the partition. In other
words, does adjacency take priority over positioning? Or vice versa?
Wishing I didn't work on Monday nights,
Bill
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed 12 May 1999 - 19:34:08 PDT