(*).    Partitioning your harddrive


(*).1.    Partitions

If you are a seasoned Linux hacker, you probably know how you want your disks
and partitions set up. The following is a useful layout for the author:

primary partition 1     20-40 MB        /boot
primary partition 2     1 - 3 GB        /
other partitons         1 - X GB        other root, /home, /usr/src etc.
primary partition 4     100 MB          swap

The only point the author tries to show here is the use of a small /boot
partition. By having a separate boot partiton, it becomes somewhat easier to
play with multiple distributions on the same physical harddisk. This trick is
also useful if you for some reason want to have a network-mounted (or
ramdisk-based) / and/or /usr partition. Please see:
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/nfsroot.txt
and (for ramdisk based systems): 
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/initrd.txt
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/ramdisk.txt

Remember that after bootup, the kernel image on disk is not needed anymore.
Thus /boot does not even have to be mounted for everyday use.

Another useful trick is to put lilo.conf on the /boot partiton and
(optionally) create a symlink to it in /etc. Thus, you can have multiple
root-partitons on the same system, but just one lilo.conf. This is useful if
you are playing with multiple distributions.



