Linux is a bit different from what operating system you might be used to. It
allows for you to install the operating system one place and have the user
files elsewhere. The operating system is installed in / (called root) and
the users's files are installed in /home.
Many people find it useful to have your operating system and /home in
separate partitions. The reason is that you can re-use home if done this way
and never lose your data or settings if you re-install your operating
system. The root file system is replaced, but the users files would not be
touched provided you elect for a custom installation and do not format
/home.
The file system keeps users away from your root directory and they would
need to know the password for root to make changes.
Since you will be wanting users to use separate drives this suggests a
custom installation anyway. You might as well go the extra mile to have
separate partitions for root and home.
If this was my system, I would partition the larger drive so that it has
about 20 GBs for the root file system and the in one partition formatted in
ext3 or 4. The other drive I would format and set as my /home. To do this
you format the drive in ext3 or 4 and set the mount point as /home. Use your
user name and password.
After installation you can then add users and give each a password, but set
their /home on the unused partition of your other drive.
A couple of considerations are in order. It is easier (but not better) to
have the root partition on your first drive as that is where grub, the boot
loader, prefers to reside. It can be edited or installed on the second
drive, but it saves you the hassle. Therefore it might be better to use the
remainder of the first drive for your other users and the second drive for
you.
However, you don't say anything about drive size. If users are heavy
downloaders you may want to re-think your placement of their /home folders
and partition size. You can run a distribution in 8 GBs, but if you install
lots of applications afterwards, you can run out of space and things bog
down or even crash. If it is 20 GBs for / it leaves you with space for
growth. If you opt for lots of post installation (there are 35000
applications or so) then you want to go larger 30 GBs or even more.
Most space should be devoted to /home as most users download and produce
lots of material.
All things are possible. Well almost. My system has two drives and a over a
dozen partitions. I typically have several distributions installed at once
and use several different /homes just for myself. It is that much fun!
Roy
2009/10/25 JimT <jim6440@yahoo.
>
>
> Guess the first thing to say is i really do not know much about computers.
> and i am very interested in learning linux. I have 2 hard drives on my
> computer and 4 users. I want to know how to do a partition to have linux on
> #2 and keep #1 for all the other users. #2 has very little on it other then
> what was put on it when it was installed by a computer service co. when i
> bought it. I have put a few things on it myself like lanwhois, auslogics
> reg.defrag, google hacks and a trial of smart draw 2010. and my guess is i
> can just move them to #1 if i even want to keep them. It is a MAXTOR 6Y080M0
> and has 4.08 GB of used and 228 GB of unused space on it. Guess thats the
> most of it, just looking for some support on this and looking forward to
> learning linux! Thank you, jim6440
>
>
>
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