Re: [Hampshire] QTParted and /boot

hantslug@??? wrote:
> On Saturday 09 Dec 2006 17:59, Sean Gibbins wrote:
>> Perhaps if you can give us an
>> indication of what you are aiming towards, we can advise accordingly?
>
> I am aiming towards having various different partitions and then several
> different distros on the same HD. Purely as an exercise. And one of the
> schemes that I was trying to follow advised practically everything separate.
>
> At this juncture I would be happy with almost any scheme that works - I have
> so far partitioned when installing and have never partitioned first. I have
> been to classes and read books and they all tell me what I ought to do - but
> not one of them tells me how. So I am trying to partition and then install.
> But it is not a production machine - it is a learning exercise. My inability
> to partition is becoming ridiculous.
>
> And I also want to have a separate MBR and possibly a separate /boot in order
> to have grub and various distros. But I can do that as a separate exercise,
> if that would be your advice.

There's nothing to stop you partitioning up the disk first and then
manually selecting the partitions with the tool favoured by whatever
distro you are installing.

There is a limit to the number of partitions you can have on a single
disk (15 - 3 primary, 1 extended further sub-divided into 12 logical
partitions), so bear that in mind.

With the MBR, subsequent installations should find and update the MBR;
GRUB is pretty good at this in my experience.

You are correct in saying that you will need separate /boot partitions
for each installation, although it does not necessarily need its own
partition.

How big your partitions are will obviously depend upon how big the disk
is, what sort of installations you go for, and how much data you
anticipate storing. If you are playing then I guess it is unlikely you
will need massive /home partitions. I don't know what the common school
of thought is with regard to sharing your swap among several distros on
the same machine. It would appear to make sense given that only one
distro will be booted and using it at any one time, but I have been
known to be wrong on these things before! ;o)

Sean