HD Install :: Partition for 20GB 600MHz Celeron?

I'd like to install DSL on an old 600MHz Celeron that has a 20GB HD. This machine will be used only as an internet workstation by a retired couple (newbies to computers in general).

- How many partitions do I need for the above task? No other O/S.
- What is the best size for each partition? Do I need a seperate Swap space partition?
- How do I completely clean/format the HD first? Any tools on the DSL CD that will help me do this?

What is the best type of install in this case? Install to HD, I assume...

Thanks for your help.

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- How many partitions do I need for the above task? No other O/S.

Depends which kind of install and how much configuration you care to do. Debian-style hard drive install: two partitions. Frugal: three. Which is better? If you want to keep it updated, frugal.

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- What is the best size for each partition? Do I need a seperate Swap space partition?

This is probably in the wiki. First, yes you need swap; a general rule of thumb is twice the size of RAM, but this depends how much RAM you have and what you're going to use the computer for. For browsing and e-mailing, twice the size of RAM (assuming RAM is 64MB or more) should be adequate.

If you do a frugal install, the ISO's partition needs to be about 55-60MB (just in case there are versions that swell a little) and the rest can be dedicated for /home and MyDSL.

If you do a Debian-style hard drive install, you can either set up separate partitions for /home and whatever else or you can throw it all on one. If you choose the latter, upgrading DSL versions will require you to make backups of /home (and whatever else) if you want to save settings, etc.

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How do I completely clean/format the HD first? Any tools on the DSL CD that will help me do this?

I don't know what you mean by clean. Darik's Boot and Nuke is my preference for securely erasing hard drives:
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

You'll use fdisk or cfdisk to repartition and then formatting is done via the fs tools depending which kind of file system. The install scripts will format your partitions except for swap.

I've been using a frugal hd install on an old 267MHz PII for a while now - updating is just a question of replacing the ../KNOPPIX file.

I used a 1GB swap (formatted type 82), a 100MB partition for the iso (formatted type 83 - ext2) and a third partition that was the balance of the space (formatted type 83 - ext2).

I did not completely reformat the hd, but used ntfsprogs to shrink the existing ntfs partition and then used sfdisk to create partitions in the space created with ntfsprogs.

At the time, I could only get a lilo boot to work (the machine would not boot from cd or usb to use an install script and I needed to keep an ntfs partition on the same drive) - this makes it awkward to change the boot codes. If you can manage it, I believe it would be better to use a grub boot.

Thanks lucky13 and Juanito! I'm going to do the HD install with 2 partitions. Since this is a 20GB HD, I'll 2 partitions of 10GB each. I assume I can make them plain Linux partitions and DSL will change to the appropriate type (swap or ext2 or other)? If this machine will be used for Internet access mainly (90%), that should not be a problem, I assume. The machine will have 256MB or 384MB of RAM.

Off topic: Which browser should I install on this machine? Needs: Reliability, Speed. Extras: Flash, Adobe Reader.

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Since this is a 20GB HD, I'll 2 partitions of 10GB each. I assume I can make them plain Linux partitions and DSL will change to the appropriate type (swap or ext2 or other)?

The answer to that question is no. As I wrote previously, DSL won't change anything and it doesn't mkswap. You need to manually decide what you want, where you want it. The script will format the filesystem where you choose to install -- only that partition.

Again, your swap needs to be about double the size of RAM. There's no reason at all to have 10GB set aside for swap, at least under normal circumstances like you described (frankly, I think you can get by with less than that if it's only going to be used for browsing). Use cfdisk and set up your first partition of 512MB -- adequate for either amount of RAM. You'll be prompted if you want it at the beginning or end; I'd put it at the end. Then change the type; you'll be prompted to read through a list and the default is 82 (Linux swap). Then dedicate the rest as Linux 83 (the default) and toggle it bootable.

Once you do that and have it written, reboot.

You can enter the cheatcode install at the prompt or you can let it load and then use the install to hard drive option. I would do mkswap and swapon before installing, but you can wait until afterward.

If your swap is /dev/hda1, you'll do the following:

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sudo mkswap /dev/hda1

Then:

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sudo swapon /dev/hda1

The install script will format the partition where you want DSL installed. Your choices are ext2 and ext3.

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