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Linux Partition Scheming
Root Partition -
The root partition, referenced as a forward slash in the
filesystem "/", is where files relating to the operating system
itself are stored and where the programs you install on top of
that operating system are likely to be found. If something
happens to your root partition, as simple as a mistake in a
configuration file for example, your system may become
unbootable or may not load everything you have set up, such as
failing to mount network locations or physical devices, failure
loading kernel modules, etc. This partition needs to be big
enough in size to contain your operating system, installed
applications, and all dependencies of your installed
applications, and can be formatted depending on your use case as
xfs, or ext4, being two of the most common filesystems for a
typical desktop, workstation, or server.
Home Partition - The home partition, referenced as "/home" in
the filesystem, is where user data like documents, pictures, and
downloads are stored by default. Also stored here are program
configuration files and other program data. This is important to
know, as reinstalling linux on a root partition properly will
not affect the data in the home partition, meaning you can keep
configurations and settings for programs between entire system
reinstalls, without losing anything as long as the original home
partition is mounted. This isn't possible in a system where
/home is found in the root partition (a scheme where there's
only one partition, that being root). The home partition will
typically be the largest partition in any system layout, because
this is where the most data will be stored, like videos, photos,
documents, downloads, or other program data like databases.
However, sometimes as mentioned before when there's a single
root partition only, the /home directory might not be used to
store much, if anything. Formatting for the home partition
typically is almost always best formatted as ext4 unless you're
using raid or zfs or btrfs.
Swap Partition - The swap partition, referenced as "swap", is a
partition or file once more important than it is today. If your
system does not have a swap partition or swap file, more than
likely you might not even notice, but some errors may arise from
not having one so it's always good to have some swap space. This
swap partition or swapfile essentially turns the set amount of
storage space from a storage device, into virtual memory.
swapfiles and swap partitions are equally performant, but I
recommend forgoing setting up a swap partition during your
partitioning in favour of a swapfile, which can be created after
installation. In the past the swap space would be double the
amount of system memory the system had, for example if you had
512MB of ram, you'd have a 1GB swap space, but this is not
longer the rule anymore, as modern computers have much more than
1GB of ram. I typically create a swapfile equal to the amount of
ram I have, but this can be made doubled, halfed, quartered, and
in some environments you don't have to make a swap partition at
all.
Ext/Ext2/Ext3/Ext4
- Ext or Extended Filesystem can be used for both home and root
partitions on many distributions, but is considered outdated and
was superceded by Ext2, Ext3, and most recently, Ext4. Ext4 can
support an unlimited number of directories and subdirectories,
unlike Ext3 or previous versions which had limitations to the
number of subdirectories; Ext4 also supports large files and the
filesystem size limit is 16TB, which is more than suitable for
most systems that arent backup or storage servers.
XFS - XFS is a highly scalable filesystem that keeps track of
changes in a log before committing them to changes in the main
filesystem. At first, XFS was created to support extremely large
filesystems, with sizes of up to 16EB (1 Exabyte = 1 Billion GB
or 1 Million TB) and file sizes of up to 8EB. Perfect for large
storage arrays and servers. It is one of the most performant
filesystems for enterprise workloads on a large scale. Even with
small volume sizes, XFS performs well when the average files
sizes are large, for example hundreds of megabytes or more.
Swap Partition - The swap partition, referenced as "swap",
is a partition or file once more important than it is today. If
your system does not have a swap partition or swap file, more
than likely you might not even notice, but some errors may arise
from not having one so it's always good to have some swap space.
This swap partition or swapfile essentially turns the set amount
of storage space from a storage device, into virtual memory.
swapfiles and swap partitions are equally performant, but I
recommend forgoing setting up a swap partition during your
partitioning in favour of a swapfile, which can be created after
installation. In the past the swap space would be double the
amount of system memory the system had, for example if you had
512MB of ram, you'd have a 1GB swap space, but this is not
longer the rule anymore, as modern computers have much more than
1GB of ram. I typically create a swapfile equal to the amount of
ram I have, but this can be made doubled, halfed, quartered, and
in some environments you don't have to make a swap partition at
all.
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