linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Mint (Mate) Version 17

Friday, July 4, 2014

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Mint (Mate) Version 17

On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 11:31:22PM -0500, 'Gene C. Falck' gfalck@merr.com [LINUX_Newbies] wrote:
> Hi Roy,
>
> You wrote:
>
>
> sda
> sda1 4013 swap
> sda2 10742 ext4
> sda4 290486 Extended
> sda5 290485 ext4
>
> Is sda1 a good location for swap? My instances of
> the Mint 17 installation doing "its own thing" seem
> to put it after sda1 (but as a logical partition, sda5
> of sda2 extended partition).

Most Linux distributions try to go for logical partitions. There is some
logic in it, as, under standard partitioning, you can only have 4 primary
partitions--using logical partitions increasese the amount of partitioning
that you can do. RedHat based partition schemes also default to using
logical volumes, which, while frequently useful in the business world for a
server can be more confusing to a newcomer on a desktop.

I tend to put swap in my first partition--I think that years ago I read
that there were merits to doing so, and I haven't further research on it.

For most home machines, it's probably not going to make much difference.
Many like a separate home partition, so that if they upgrade, or even
change distributions, many of their preferences will be saved.

Don't get too hung up on the partitioning. There are all sorts of
different schemes, most of which have some sort merit.

You will, especially on a home machine, probably see no difference in
performance if swap is on sda1 or not, or whether it's in a primary or
logical partition.

--
Scott Robbins
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