Hey everybody !!
in this post we will talk about the Linux installation but before we start let’s see how does Linux deal with the hard disk.
Partitioning Scheme :-
First : the name of your hard disk is determined by the technology it uses and the way you connect it to your computer like that:-
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ATA disk starts with (hd)
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SATA or the SCSI disks starts with (sd).
But Fedora started to use (sd) for all HDDs starting from Fedora core 7 and UBUNTU also does that.
the next character is dedicated depending on your hard disk status so let’s assume that you had an ATA HDD, the scheme will be like that:-
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hda primary master
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hdb primary slave
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hdc secondary master
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hdd secondary slave
now let’s see how does the partitions names look like?
The data about your partitions is stored in the first sector of your hard disk which called the MBR (Master Boot Record) in 64 bytes only which is only enough to fully describe just 4 partitions. These partitions are called primary partitions and it takes number from 1 to 4. so lets assume that you have a primary master ATA disk then the partitions will look like that:-
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hda1 the first primary partition
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hda2 the second primary partition
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hda3 the third primary partition
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hda4 the fourth primary partition
if you need more partitions then you need to make an (Extended partition) which is a primary partition that is capable of holding other sub-partitions called (Logical partitions).
Note: Theoretically you can make unlimited amount of logical partitions in the extended partition but Linux limits that number to 59 in the IDE disks and 11 in SCSI disks.
Logical partitions takes numbers starts from 5. this means that (hda5) is the first logical partition in your disk whatever the number of your primary partitions is and the second logical partition will be (hda6) etc.
In the graph we can see that:-
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hda1 and hda2 are the first two primary partitions.
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hda3 is also a primary partition but it is an extended partition which only holds two logical partitions (hda5 and hda6).
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hda5 is the first logical partition in the disk so takes number 5.
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hda6 is the second logical partition in the disk so it takes number 6.
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hda4 is the fourth primary partition so it has no relations with the logical ones and it takes number 4.
The root file system :-
Now let’s see what is the requirements to install Linux.
At least you need one partition to install Linux and this partition will be called the root file system which holds your data or link to it. So the root file system will be mounted as “ / “ (slash), and all other partitions will be mounted under it like that
now “dev” will be called “/dev” and “home” will be “/home” etc. and we will speak about the functionality of these main directories later.
You also can make any main directory of those a separate file system (partition) and it will be mounted under the root file system “/” and it will look like any other directory. That’s may be useful in some cases which also will be discussed later.
the file system that should be created on that partition should be (ext2 or ext3) file system but ext3 is more efficient.
SWAP area :-
You can start your installation with the root file system only, but if your RAM is small (256M or less) so you need to make a place to be considered as virtual memory. This area must be a separate partition – unlike Windows – this partition use’s the “swap” file system and it’s size should be twice as much as your RAM size for the best performance.
Installation :-
Now we can start the installation and as we said before we will work on the three major distributions. So we can’t be very verbose. So let’s speak about the most important and sensitive part of the installation which is Partitioning. And the rest of the installation is simple and easy to understand if you read the tips carefully.
I recommend that you should have a backup of your important data because there are two kinds of people, people who make backups and people who never delete a file. So, always have backups.
Lets Start Partitioning:
