SOLVED - What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

[ukchucktown]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Applications are not installed to /home. It's more like Documents and Settings in a Windows system.

You might want to review the Linux file system structure. There's a lot of information online and it will help you understand how to partition your disk.

Grant

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Grant,

I do remember something about applications being installed to a particular directory. The problem with Linux is that there is no standard filestructure. It differs from distro to distro and is a constant headache for normal users as a program might work just fine on one distro, but will make a mess on a different distro. So when it comes to filestructure, you need to look at the particular distro. Especially when it comes to config files and where programs live. If you have a link for Kubuntu, I'd be happy to print out a "map" and hang it on the wall here :-)

As far as I remember, when I installed RSSOwl on a computer with Linux Mint, it ended up in my /home folder. There was no special installer, more like a "portable" version. I actually like the portable versions of programmes as the do not litter the filesystem. Instead they keep everything inside one folder and it makes it easy to move the programmes to another computer. On the new disk, I will try to use as much portable programmes as possible.

[ukchucktown]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

The great thing about Ubuntu is it's based on Debian so you don't get all the custom stuff, just the standard Unix tools you can expect to find in any distribution. It is not standard practice to install anything under /home no matter what distro you are using. You can do it but it's not standard practice. The /home directory is for user home directories.

I put optional packages in /opt and use symbolic links to /usr/bin. Understanding the file system tree isn't that hard. Here you go...

http://tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/sect_03_01.html

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Found a map that I liked. It is a bit old, so it could have been great to get an up-to-date map.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Vbsj-yhipT..._structure.jpg

Just set up the harddisk and this is the partition I went with:

1 - Primary - NTFS - WindowsXP - 30GB
2 - Primary - NTFS - Data - 230GB
3 - Primary - ext3 - Kubuntu - 15GB
4 - Extended
5 - Logical - ext3 - /home - 20GB
6 - Logical - linux-swap - swap - 4GB

Now I need to start the installation. Have prepared the winnt.sif file so I can locate files where I want them. Got a couple of small things I need to figure out there, but this is not the forum for those questions :-) The Kubuntu part should be covered pretty well now.

Thank you to all that answered my questions. As I said, I will get back with more info after installation and also write a blogpost about it.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Just a little progress report:

I am writing this through Konqueror as I have not downloaded Firefox yet. But so far most things seem to work. The install went fine, but I did not get much choice when it came to decide where the bootloader should be placed.

Just before the Kubuntu install starts, on the summary page, there is an advanced button. I clicked it and in the dropdown menu, I would have expected at least two choices - MBR and the partition I chose as /. But it only gave me the name of the whole harddrive (sda). Not sure what that means.

Anyway - WindowsXP is installed, Kubuntu 9.04 is installed. Now I need to start installing the various applications.

I am still searching for a few things. Where do I set the bitdepth of my monitor/graphics card? I would actually like to rightclick on the desktop and find all things related to graphics on that menu.
Tried activating the nVidia driver, but it did not work. Gonna install all the updates now and see what happens.

I must say that Kubuntu 9.04 looks absolutely beautiful. I will try to move as much work from WindowsXP over to Kubuntu as possible to keep Windows XP clean.

Do I need to install anything to be sure I have fully transparent access to NTFS partitions? I need to figure out the symlinks so I get all of my userdata on the NTFS Data partition.

[muzicman0]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

sda would be your first harddrive...sdb would be the 2nd, etc...I think USB drives (stickes, or external HDD's) also follow that, so if you plug in a USB drive, it could be sdc, etc...the first partition on the first drive would be sda1...2nd partition would be sda2, etc. Hope that makes sense.

mm0

[Fintan]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Or to make it more confusing.

In Grub language:
(hd0,0) is the first hard drive, the first partition.
(hd0,1) is the first hard drive, the second partition.
(hd1,0) is the second hard drive, the first partition.
(hd3,6) is the fourth hard drive, the seventh partition.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Exactly.

As one of the other messages stated that one partition would be formatted sda# (do not rememebr the number, but it was the swap partition), I would have assumed that I should have been given the option of choosing sda3 as this was the partition where I installed /.

As it only showed sda, I have to assume it has been installed to the MBR?

[Fintan]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Just before the Kubuntu install starts, on the summary page, there is an advanced button. I clicked it and in the dropdown menu, I would have expected at least two choices - MBR and the partition I chose as /. But it only gave me the name of the whole harddrive (sda). Not sure what that means.

In a word: yes.

JJ (Kubuntu 9.04) is still basicly alpha so a few little things are missing. But you could have just typed (hd0,2) = sda3

Having said that, in your case with dual booting linux/windows mbr (sda) is the better option because this way you will not have to fool around tweaking the windows boot manager to load linux. ( a real pain)

Putting grub on a different partition is only useful when you want to install various linuxes and already have a grub on mbr.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: What version of Kubuntu to install and suggestions for partitioning

Thx. As I just mentioned to someone else, I could not see anywhere to type. Just the drop-down menu. Maybe I overlooked something.

The reason I was thinking about putting grub on that partition was the MediaDirect button on my laptop. I have not dared pressing it yet. Was kinda hoping that it would go for the same partition number as before and result in booting Kubuntu instead...