LINUX Install

[Zygomorphic]

Hello again, everyone. It seems that we haven't discussed LINUX here in a while. I thought it is about time to change that, since summer is here, and I am nearly done rebuilding my laptop. Considering what I said above, I figured I would go ahead and share my experiences with the system.

I had mentioned previously that I was planning on putting Windows in a VM, and going Penguin all the way. :)Well, my friends, that has happened, and I am running LINUX Mint 14 on my Seagate Hybrid drive (15 sec boot time :)). I have Windows 7 in a VM now, and it seems happy there, and is easier to manage than Windows on a drive with LINUX. I have to say, getting rid of Windows made things easier, since only Windows doesn't respect other people's bootloaders, and is arrogant enough to think that it is the only OS you want. :mad:

I did some research on the best partitioning scheme for LINUX, and which filesystems to use for which partitions, and so this is the partitioning scheme that I chose, given that I am planning on having multiple VMs on this machine, so the maximum storage is ideal.
/dev/sdb2 /boot 255 MB ext2
/dev/sdb3 Extended partition
/dev/sdb6 / 50 GB ext4
/dev/sdb7 /home 418 GB ext4
/dev/sdb5 swap 32 GB swap

I have 16 GB of RAM, and so went with the rule-of-thumb 1.5-2x RAM for swap space. I don't tend to hibernate my system, but if I ever do, I want the option of doing so. I could probably have gone with 16 GB, and if I were more pressed for space, I would have.

I've heard that some suggest splitting /boot and the / partitions, so I decided that it can't hurt, and it can keep some of my other stuff separate. If you guys don't think that this is necessary, I'd like to know that for the future.

I'm a firm believer in separating the /home partition from everything else, especially since I sometimes change LINUX distros, and this allows me to preserve all my files. 🙂 For someone who just wants to try LINUX out, I go with the simple partitioning scheme of (/ and swap), but since I use LINUX for my daily tasks, I wanted a better system.

TODO:
* Install nVidia drivers to obtain better graphics performance and power management.
* Download LINUX kernel sources and learn more about building LINUX kernels.
* Try out other distros and configs in VM - more learning.
* Upgrade to LINUX Mint 15 when it comes out.

Any thoughts and/or suggestions? I'm happy to have feedback, and would like people's thoughts. I'm particularly interested in starting a flame war about distros, as well as filesystems. :cool:

[Zygomorphic]

Nodens wrote:
Yes the main benefit is on "/" since it holds files that are accessed continuously. /home holds small configuration files and whatever you save there so the performance boost would be negligible.:)

Will do then! Going to download Gentoo today. Do you recommend starting from one of the live DVDs, or from starting from something else? (stages). I'm willing to go either way, but if I go "live", I still would want to recompile everything myself, since that seems to be the point of that distro. Thanks for all your help! 🙂

[Nodens]

You can use either the stage3 install iso or the minimal install iso (the later absolutely needs a net connection from the start) and follow the Gentoo Handbook:). Stage1 and stage2 are for Gentoo developers mostly and they are used to create the stage3 iso/tarball. stage3 builds the toolchain needed for installation.
I've never done a Gentoo installation from a Live disc but I believe it's the same as using stage3, it should still build the toolchain and use portage to recompile every package. A quick look at the handbook says you'd just have to do things from terminal with su:)
Gentoo will squeeze every little bit of performance for that laptop!;)

A couple of pointers:

When you edit make.conf use these flags for the compiler:
CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"

If you plan to actually use a debugger (gdb) then omit the "-fomit-frame-pointer" flag. Otherwise use it because it provides a good performance boost:)

MAKEOPTS should be set to number of cores+1 (as per the handbook) for fastest compiling:)

[Nodens]

billyray520 wrote:
I like to walk on the wild side! 😛 I'm also running Windows 98 & Windows 95 desktops which are on the home LAN plus a MS-DOS 3.3 desktop. I revel in obsolete, discontinued, OS's. 😉

Then you should also install OS/2, NeXTSTEP and BeOS/Haiku cause all 3 are fun 😛

EDIT for Fun Fact of the Day:

In fact Win95 and Win98 are actually..DOS running a GUI much like Linux is running X!
If you check the "msdos.sys" file on the root of the boot drive you will see that it's actually a text file instead of binary like the previous DOS versions. So if you do this:

1) Remove hidden, system, read-only flags from it via "attrib -s -r -h msdos.sys"
2) Edit it with a text file editor and add/change "BootGUI=0" under "[Options]"
3) Restore hidden, system and read-only flags via "attrib +s +r +h msdos.sys"
4) Reboot.

You'll find out they boot into straight DOS. Then all you have to do to run the GUI is type "win" and hit enter. Just like previous versions of Windows that were running on top of DOS.
You can also use this trick to run older versions of Windows on DOS 7 (That's the DOS version number heh). 😉

[Myk_SilentShado]

I always knew that 95 and 98 were just GUI's floating over the top of DOS, but, I don't remember DOS 7...the last one I remember is 6.6 or 6.22...even that number is hazy lol

[Zygomorphic]

Myk SilentShadow wrote:
I always knew that 95 and 98 were just GUI's floating over the top of DOS, but, I don't remember DOS 7...the last one I remember is 6.6 or 6.22...even that number is hazy lol

MS-DOS 6.22 was the last version of DOS that was shipped apart from Windows. As to derailing the thread no worries. I forgot to get my Gentoo image today, so will try to remember to do it tomorrow, because I'm interested to see how fast it will run. I've also taken the advice of the people on here and removed the separate /boot partition as well as shrunk the Swap partition.

[Myk_SilentShado]

Nodens wrote:
DOS 7 is the version number 98 runs on, that's why you don't remember it. It was never sold or marketed seperately. DOS 7 is essentially Win98 heh

Zygomorphic wrote:
MS-DOS 6.22 was the last version of DOS that was shipped apart from Windows. As to derailing the thread no worries. I forgot to get my Gentoo image today, so will try to remember to do it tomorrow, because I'm interested to see how fast it will run. I've also taken the advice of the people on here and removed the separate /boot partition as well as shrunk the Swap partition.

Right, thanks guys...that explains why I forgot about 7 lol 😛

[Nodens]

DOS 7 is the version number 98 runs on, that's why you don't remember it. It was never sold or marketed seperately. DOS 7 is essentially Win98 heh

[billyray520]

In fact Win95 and Win98 are actually..DOS running a GUI much like Linux is running X!
If you check the "msdos.sys" file on the root of the boot drive you will see that it's actually a text file instead of binary like the previous DOS versions. So if you do this:

1) Remove hidden, system, read-only flags from it via "attrib -s -r -h msdos.sys"
2) Edit it with a text file editor and add/change "BootGUI=0" under "[Options]"
3) Restore hidden, system and read-only flags via "attrib +s +r +h msdos.sys"
4) Reboot.

You'll find out they boot into straight DOS. Then all you have to do to run the GUI is type "win" and hit enter. Just like previous versions of Windows that were running on top of DOS.
You can also use this trick to run older versions of Windows on DOS 7 (That's the DOS version number heh).

Thanks Nodens! :cool: More ways to have fun with discontinued Windows! 😉

Sorry about derailing the Linux thread with nasty Windows. 😛

[Nodens]

Waiting for a review on your experiences with Gentoo, Zygo:)

[Zygomorphic]

Nodens wrote:
Waiting for a review on your experiences with Gentoo, Zygo:)

Got it downloaded...Going to try live DVD (USB) right now...I got it downloaded yesterday. 🙂 Any recommendations on how to install it? Partitioning requirements and the like? I don't know how much free space I am going to need for the / partition (probably going to link my 400+ GB /home) partition, if that is safe. I used to think that I was decent with LINUX...then @nodens showed up. 😛