Chapter 7 . Installing Linux 253 Although some (Web server certificate)
Chapter 7 . Installing Linux 253 Although some of these options are distribution-specific, others are simply options that can be passed to an installer environment that works from a Linux kernel. Chapter 11 includes a list of many boot options that can be used with KNOPPIX and other Linux systems. Partitioning Hard Drives The hard disk (or disks) on your computer provides the permanent storage area for your data files, applications programs, and the operating system itself. Partitioning is the act of dividing a disk into logical areas that can be worked with separately. In Windows, you typically have one partition that consumes the whole hard disk. However, with Linux there are several reasons you may want to have multiple partitions: . Multiple operating systems If you install Linux on a PC that already has a Windows operating system, you may want to keep both operating systems on the computer. For all practical purposes, each operating system must exist on a completely separate partition. When your computer boots, you can choose which system to run. . Multiple partitions within an operating system To protect from having your entire operating system run out of disk space, people often assign separate partitions to different areas of the Linux file system. For example, if /home and /var were assigned to separate partitions, then a gluttonous user who fills up the /home partition wouldn t prevent logging daemons from continuing to write to log files in the /var/log directory. Multiple partitions also make it easier to do certain kinds of backups (such as an image backup). For example, an image backup of /home would be much faster (and probably more useful) than an image backup of the root file system (/). . Different file system types Different kinds of file systems have different structures. File systems of different types must be on their own partitions. In most Linux systems, you need at least one file system type for / (typically ext3 or reiserfs) and one for your swap area. File systems on CD-ROM use the iso9660 file system type. When you create partitions for Linux, you will usually assign the file system type as Linux native (using the ext2 or ext3 type on some Linux systems, and reiserfs on others). Reasons to use other types include needing a file system that allows particularly long filenames or many inodes (each file consumes an inode). For example, if you set up a news server, it can use many inodes to store news articles. Another reason for using a different file system type is to copy an image backup tape from another operating system to your local disk (such as one from an OS/2 or Minix operating system). Tip
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