MX Linux Forum

As a general principle, the best partition scheme, if you have the space, is to create several spare partitions to be used in future installations. Plan ahead. If you have a new computer and are installing MX-21 for the first time in, for example, a 30 GB sda3. Create two or more additional 30 GB partitions sda4, sda5, etc, to be used when you want to first install MX-23, MX-25, etc. without messing up your working system.

If you only want to install one distribution on a (relatively small) SSD, it's easy, no partitioning, root and /home together, swap I would rather create later as a swapfile. Swap files have the advantage that they can be adapted to current needs at any time.

Although I have relatively modern computers, I do not use UEFI and thus also the GPT scheme with ESP partition (usually between 512-1021MB in size and if you do not have Windows10,11 in dualboot, only a few MB are occupied, the "rest" is wasted space). And since I don't have more than 4 primary partitions on any of my disks, GPT is irrelevant for me.
Additional distributions are (and were) never on the same disk as my work system and my data, I use external disks for that and 4 primary partitions are enough for me, because I don't really need more than the work system + 4 other systems at the same time.
In my distro hopping days, yes, there were times when I had 20-30 distros on one disk ... and that also worked with MBR, you just had to work with extended and logical partitions.
Whereas I don't have the problem with too few disks and too much space, but rather too many disks with too much space ;-} (no, these are not all the disks, but all the ones I can connect at the same time)

MB83 wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:55 pm I would like to correct a wrong info that I gave about my netbook, this Aspire One 725 has 4 GB RAM not 8 as I wrote previously.

No problem. In fact we always request this (as it tells all at once (filtering the private ones)) :

I am old school, MBR installation, with the Warren Woodford scheme. No windows installed.

I do a small (256G) SSD, partitioned into the maximum four primary partitions.
1. About 30G for /
2. Another 32+G for swap (a bit more than the RAM), though it is seldom used.
3. Another 50G partition for /home
4. The rest of the disk (>100G) for testing.

That 4th partition is for installing MX 23 or a new antiX when they come out. I test the RCs and then the final. After final is validated, I install the new MX over the three first partitions. The testing one stays as a back-up OS in case of problems, and it is overwritten when a new MX or antiX comes out for testing. And the cycle continues...

My /home is small because I don't use it much. All my data and files go on a separate large (1TB) SSD backed up to a 2G rotating drive. It makes back-ups simple, and keeps the data safe when installing or testing a new MX.

Well ... I think the only honest answer is: the way you want it to work.

And that sort of depends on your own preferred methods of learning.

If you are a pragmatic-practical type learner well just use the easiest install method
Work with it a few days - shuffle data around, browse websites, create office files, use emails and file what needs to be filed.
make sure you have external copies of your important files

Then! Reinstall MX and tweak the installation to see what happens. Then repeat most if not all of the work on that newer install (well not exactly word for word but most of the day-to-day things you want to do on a computer including VLC videos, chats, gaming and the like).

If you are a theoretical type learner read-up first then try out and re-install if you need to.
The big idea in my opinion, is to make sure your critical data is also stored externally just in case you need it pronto after a fresh install
SSDs are so fast and so cheap they are handier than USB thumb drives.
Whatever approach you take - have fun! Enjoy exploring a new OS

]First of all I really would like to thanks all of the people that answer at my request
Then I tried to do a "mix" choice on this computer:
During the installation I choose to set the default option but I resize the root partition to 30 GB. Then installed the OS and finally with Gparted and the USBLive create 2 new partitons of 30 GB each 1 for Data and 1 for Test OS as suggested from many other users.

There are mistakes on what I applied in this computer? some improvement that I need to do?
If I want install Flubox in order to test it on the Test partiton what I need to do without compromising the original installation?
Many thanks
Marco

You can install it on sda6 "straightforward" if you like: If you don't select boot and home on any partitions, then all will be in root (classic).. Shortly, just select ESP for sda1 and root for sda6 ... (and if you uncheck the grub installation in that stage, just do a sudo update-grub when booted to your real (non-test) MX to make it see the new one)

(Also either during installation or later (with GParted or terminal) you can label the sda6 as MX-Test or so... (without space) then it'll be easy to recognize it everywhere, also in file manager ...)

8bit wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:55 pm

MXRobo wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:10 pm 1 - I have always heard that you can share swap with other distros on a rather common install – I have always done that when I had more than one distro installed.

If one is very careful to keep the newly installed OS from formatting the existing swap. Some installers don't provide that option. Debian is one of the worst; it will glom onto every swap partition on the machine unless specifically told not to.

Sorry for the delay, busy - Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that, perhaps the swap was not working on some of my earlier installed distros on my multiboot systems.

MXRobo wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:10 pm Documents, if it's greyed out and you can't, you'll probably need to run this afterwards:

Code: Select all

sudo chown -R yourusername: /mnt/DATA

Lots of all kind of great info from many posters, appreciated from myself as well. Post from @8bit should be somehow saved into guides or stickied etc...

When I create separate data partition, I use this command to gain control over it: (I hope it is OK to have it mounted in /media/)

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /media/DATA

But since I was told, there should always be root owned folder: "lost+found" on it for file system stability (per memory), I then create folder lost+found on it and then run this command:

sudo chown root:root lost+found

@Buck Fankers

(I hope it is OK to have it mounted in /media/)

Using /media, the partition will be displayed on the left side in Thunar and Xfce (not sure with other F.M.’s or desktops), whereas using /mnt it will not, and since I symlink the directories/folders created in the DATA partition from my home folder, I don’t really need them to be displayed.

Thanks for

But since I was told, there should always be root owned folder: "lost+found" on it for file system stability

I’ll bookmark this and Googlefoo that and 8bit’s swap comment on my next installation.

The link that I provided earlier changed, so I'll edit the above link to:
https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/tuto ... 97/#msg997