[ILUG] making more partitions for Linux?

[kevin lyda]

John Gay wrote:
> I recently got a new drive for my PC and after quite a bit of thinking and
> reading, I decided to partition it for 3 partitions of about 4G each and two
> 800M partitions for CD images. I was going to put /usr, /var and /opt into each
> of the 4G partitions, then re-partitions my first drive for 500M for / and the

4g for /opt?  weird.  i don't even have a /opt...

> rest for /home. I know you need to use tar when copying the directories, but I'm
> not sure how to do it properly, and I want to be sure I get things right BEFORE
> I screw up my system, again. I want to tar each directory, one at a time, then
> mount the destination partition under /mnt and untar the directory there. I also

how about in one step:

mount /device /mnt
cd /usr
tar cpf - . | (cd /mnt ; tar xpf -)

when moving /var i suggest being in single user mode.  in multiuser mode
lots of files are open in /var.  another note about tar, it won't copy
socket files correctly.  it will do unix domain sockets (named pipes),
but not sockets.   find /dir -type s -print will find any sockets.

as long as you don't move your / partition it's easy to test.  just edit
your /etc/fstab to reflect your new layout.  if it fails boot into
single usermode.

> want to be able to 'test-drive' the new partition before committing everything.
> I also need to be able to save the / and /home directories before I re-partition
> my other Linux partitions. I also want to know how I can copy my / to CD-RW,
> with a boot image for emergency back-up. I have an idea of how to do it, but
> again, I don't want to screw anything up. I was hoping to set-up the CD to boot,
> then mount the CD as / so I can then copy the CD back to the partition in case
> of catastrophic failure.

create a boot floppy (and make sure the boot floppy's kernel will lookto
the cdrom drive to mount /).  copy the image into / . then check the
manpage for mkisofs on how to get it to use the image as a boot thingy.

-- 
kevin at suberic.net                              Nutrition Facts
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