[arch-general] Install Arch in stages?

[Ralf Mardorf]

-----Original Message-----
From: arch-general-bounces at archlinux.org on behalf of clemens fischer
Sent: Fri 12/9/2011 20:22

Grant McDuling wrote:

> Hi, I am new to Arch, being a Mint user until now. I have the iso on
> CD now and ready to install. Can I do this is stages or is it best to
> do the complete basic install in one sitting?

Regarding disk partitioning:  Arch wants to have /usr on the same
partition as "/" (the root), as long as some programs needed around boot
time reside on /usr.

With my setup (which has no desktop environment), my disks would need
(spacewise):

  / + /usr   ext4   9G
  /opt       ext4   9G
  /boot      ext2   1G
  /var       ext4   9G
  /rest      ext4  77G
  /home      ext4   9G

with plenty of room left.  The numbers don't add up to eg. 250GB because
I keep several linux installations, one of which is a "hot spare" synced
daily _before_ doing "pacman -Su" to upgrade the main system.

What disk space do other people on this list need?

+++

Hi Clemens :)

I'm using one partition for all, in other words, I only have /. Usually I use around 30GiB for a Linux install, while the maximal usage is around 20GiB. Some times I'm using a separated partition for /home, but currently I'm not doing this anymore, since for data such as music productions I anyway use a separated partition.

If you e.g. are using a separated partition for /boot, than IMO it depends on how many kernels you usually keep. For testing and comparing real-time kernels and full preempted kernels with threadirqs set I might have between 2 and up to 8 kernels installed. Using just one partition for all IMO has the advantage, that the disk space can be used were it's needed.

2 Cents,

Ralf