HD Install :: Order of partitions: swap vs linux first
I have a laptop with an 80 gig hd, with an existing NTFS partition of about 30 gigs with win xp installed on it.
Currently, the remainder of the space is unallocated.
I want to provide partitions for a linux OS, a swap partition and a partition for data and applications.
In two different places in the DSL book, examples of partitioning are given which differ in the order of the swap and the linux partitions.
Does it matter if following hda1 (Win XP), I make hda2 the swap partition, hda3 the linux OS partition OR make hda2 the linux OS partition and hda3 the swap partition (in either case I am planning to make hda4 the data and apps partition)?
(I have left out the question of making an extended partition to house a number of these partitions instead of making all 4 primary.)
Thanks for comments.
Steve
The order does not really matter. Only if you put swap between two often used partitions you can get a slight performance boost, since the read head will move to it and then to the data faster.
I don't think it matters much the way that harddrives are used (I've mixed swap and data on my hd install plenty of time 
) It's more of a matter of convention. You can do it (XP, Swap, Boot, Data) or (XP, Boot, Swap, Data) or (XP, Data, Swap, Boot), it might just not be ideal, but should work.
My current hd install has iirc (XP, Boot/Data, Swap) with XP's bootloader loading first, then starting grub. With a gig of ram, swap never gets touched anyway.
But the way I've been told, when it came to burned games for my dreamcast, is that putting the most used data on the outside of the cd, means the motor has to spin slower to cover the same distance, and then the laser has to make less of an effort to read the cd, giving you a longer dreamcast lifespan.
original here.