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submitted 1 year ago by Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Hello all, sorry for such a newbish question, as I should probably know how to properly partition a hard drive, but I really don't know where to start. So what I'm looking to do is install a Debian distro, RHEL, and Arch. Want to go with Mint LMDE, Manjaro, and Fedora. I do not need very much storage, so I don't think space is an issue. I have like a 500+ something GB ssd and the few things that I do need to store are in a cloud. I pretty much use my laptop for browsing, researching, maybe streaming videos, and hopefully more programming and tinkering as I learn more; that's about all... no gaming or no data hoarding.

Do I basically just start off installing one distro on the full hard drive and then when I go to install the others, just choose the "run alongside" option? or would I have to manually partition things out? Any thing to worry about with conflicts between different types of distros, etc.? hoping you kind folks can offer me some simple advice on how to go about this without messing up my system. It SEEMS simple enough and it might be so, but I just don't personally know how to go about it lol. Thanks alot!!

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[-] Gurfaild@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

I think the easier solution would be not to use hibernation - either shut the system down properly or use suspend-to-RAM.

If everything works, the bootloader should be whichever GRUB version comes with the distro you install first and the other distros' installers should just add entries to boot them.

[-] Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Perfect! Thanks for this info. Sounds much easier. Is there one particular bootloader you think would be BEST for multibooting different distro types? My guess would be a Debian system first probably? and do you recommend I make separate partitions for everything or just install the other distros into the same partition as the first install?

[-] Gurfaild@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There shouldn't be any significant difference between the GRUB versions that come with different distros, so the order in which you install the distros doesn't really matter.

You can't install multiple distros on one partition, so you need at least one partition per distro.

[-] Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Ok cool, thanks. Does the bootloader partition get created automatically by the installer or is that something you must do manually? and should each partition for each distro have it's own swap? or just one swap to handle all three?

[-] Gurfaild@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

The first installer will install the bootloader automatically.

It will also create a swap partition unless you tell it not to, and all distros will use all swap partitions by default, so you don't need more than one per disk.

If you don't hibernate one distro and then boot another, sharing a swap partition isn't a problem.

[-] Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I appreciate the patience and helpfulness. Dont the distro installers automatically create a swap for you? if not, how large of a swap do you recommend and would that just be an empty fat32 or ext4 partition?

[-] Gurfaild@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

A swap partition doesn't have a filesystem - it has its own partition type and doesn't contain files. The installer might create one automatically or it might not - if it asks how large it should be, a good rule of thumb is to use the same size as your RAM.

If that turns out not to be enough, you can create a swap file on a data partition later and if it's too large, you just wasted a few GB but usually that doesn't matter.

[-] Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Ok so then in this case, create one swap approximately the size of my RAM as I guess the first partition? and then each partition beyond would be just for the distros? i've scene diagrams of efi and bios partitions in the front too, what about those?

[-] Gurfaild@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

The order of the partitions shouldn't matter - usually the EFI partition comes first if there is one at all, but as far as I know that isn't actually required.

[-] Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

thanks, makes it sound easier then. but what about the mount points like I mentioned? and do people make their own partition for the home directory??? and how does a storage partition integrate with three different distros? I just want to make sure I cover all my bases.

[-] Gurfaild@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

You can create dedicated partitions for /home, but unless you know why it makes sense in your specific situation, you shouldn't.

The data partition is just another partition that you can mount somewhere, for example /mnt/storage.

[-] Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Gotcha, thanks again. Now creating these partitions is a bit more clear, now I have to learn about mounting and all of that. No clue on that side of things

this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
48 points (92.9% liked)

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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