Swap question

[Xmaster]

Im new to the whole linux thing and I have a question that has been bothering me for a while now:

I recently bought a brand new 320gb hard drive (thanks god...80GB was wayyy too small) and right now its partitioned in 3:

Part 1: 40GB -> This is the partition where my windows XP OS is installed
" 2: 40GB-> Right now its empty and not even formated, I plan to install Kubuntu on it
" 3: The remaining 240GB, I plan to partition it as NTFS so it can hosts my games/applications/etc.. for my windows partition

To make a long story short, Im wondering If I should (before formating my 240GB partition) make a 0.5 or 1gb swap partition for my linux (or is this process automatic when i will install the OS)

I have a P4 2.8 GHz with 512mb of ram(for now...will buy some more soon)

[Snowhog]

Re: Swap question

You should find this link helpful.

[Xmaster]

Re: Swap question

Just so I can get it out of the way, "swap" is a little partition (usually 1.5 or 2 times the size of your computer's RAM) that helps with memory management and multi-tasking.

So I guess I should make a 1gb swap partition?

But when I install Kubuntu, do I have the choice to make one (take 1gb out of my 40GB Kubuntu partition and set it as swap) or I must make it prior to my Kubuntu installation (boot from windows CD, take 1gb out of my RAW 240GB partition and set it as a swap partition when I install Kubuntu)?

Oh and thanks for the link.

[Snowhog]

Re: Swap question

The Kubuntu LiveCD does come with Gparted, but most prefer to download/burn the actual GParted LiveCD and do the drive partitioning with it 'in preparation' for the *ubuntu installation. You'll find numerous posts about this if you search on GParted in this forum.

[Xmaster]

Re: Swap question

Aight. But if I take 1gb out of my RAW 240gb before I format it to NTFS is still alright. Right?

(PS: I suck at the whole partition stuff so bare with me xD )

[DeathKitten]

Re: Swap question

When you install the kubuntu, it'll give you the chance to set up your swap partition then. It'll probably be easiest to just set it up then. Just leave aside the space for it when you go format your NTFS partition if you want to set that partition up first.

That said, if it were me (and after some blow to the head I'd actually want to contaminate my computer with windows :-P) I would install the kubuntu and set up my swap before I formated the NTFS partition, just because I know how the hard drive manufactures round numbers when they're calculating the size of a hard drive, and I would rather short my random data partition of my hard drive than my operating system partition, just because it's easier to toss another drive in the computer and use it for more file space than it is to add space for the OS via a second hard drive.

Also, while we're speaking of partitions, I recommend you have a separate partition for you /home under kubuntu so that if/when you choose to reinstall (like if you wanted a different flavor of linux, or there's a new release of kubuntu and you decide to do a fresh install instead of upgrade) you don't lose your data in /home. If you're mostly going to keep your media/personal files in the NTFS partition and just install the things to make the kubuntu talk NTFS, then you'll just need a small /home partition for all your settings files and such, then you can mount the NTFS partition somewhere in your /home file directory when you're accessing it from kubuntu.