Formatting and partitioning a hard drive and switching to Linux

[Zelenius]

I don't think it's necessary to explain why I am sick of Windows. I have 2 computers(one laptop and a desktop which I am currently using to post this). I already made the switch to the newest version of Ubuntu Linux with the laptop, and I am very impressed. I had another very old desktop computer that I was running Linux on, but gave it to a friend. The relatively new laptop used to have Windows 7 on it. The newer desktop(it's a Systemax) I am currently using still has Windows 7 on it, and I want to completely remove Windows and turn it into a Linux system, preferably Linux Mint. This computer is almost 2 years old and in generally good condition.

So which is the best way to wipe clean the entire hard drive of Windows and all files? Is using DBAN(Darik's Boot and Nuke) or another "Nuke" program the best way? Or can I simply format the hard drive from the Linux Mint installation disk? Although I did this with my laptop(I think), I'm not sure if I did it right(it works fine, no problems, just didn't partition right I think). I also want to partition my hard drive for security/stability reasons and then install Linux Mint on it. Which is the best way to partition my hard drive? And no, I don't want to have a dual-boot system. Windows stinks; at most I'll keep it caged within a virtual machine on a Linux PC.

It is a 257 GB hard drive, and uses NTFS, currently running Windows 7, a 64 bit system. The computer has 3 GB of RAM with a 2.4 Ghz CPU. It is a Systemax.

Although I could go ahead and make the switch, I want to make sure I am formatting and most importantly, partitioning properly. I will be backing up my files in 2 or 3 days and I'm in no hurry.

 

[Brian-M]

You could probably format it through the installation disk. That's what I did when I switched from Windows to Slackware (not exactly the most user-friendly distribution, which made things more difficult). I did it through cfdisk at the command line, but your distro probably has a more sophisticated option..

At the very least, you will want to make most of the disk a bootable linux partition (type 83), and a smaller section a linux swap-space partition (type 82). You might want to make a NTFS partition for windows if you want a duel-OS system.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Partitioning shouldn't be a problem from a Ubuntu, Mint, or what-have-you disk. You should think more about if you want a separate /home partition, or if you want 'it all' to go into / .

 

[kevinquinnyo]

When you go through the install for Linux Mint, or Ubuntu, there should be an option to Specify Partitions Manually, instead of the default partition scheme.

"Partitioning properly" is vague. The default installation will create one giant partition and swap.

What a lot of people like to do is create separate partitions for /, /var and /home, so that variable files like log files and such can be kept separate.

The reasons for this are usually so that you can set up a very easy command line backup script that only syncs the data from the /home partition and ignores the log files and such. (No real reason to back those up)

And / would contain all of the linux system directories, and be the bootable partition.

What is it that you're trying to accomplish with the partitioning scheme? Do you think you would like to have something like what I have described?

Edit:
Of course, the backup script might keep some things, perhaps /etc, which would be part of the / partition. Sorry if I'm making this more complicated than it actually is. Tell me what you'd like to accomplish and I'd be glad to help.

-Kevin

 

[kevinquinnyo]

Also,

Congrats on making the switch. You'll never go back. Trust me.

 

[The Norseman]

I just installed Linux Mint 11 (Gnome) tonight onto my gf's kitchen computer, as a matter of fact. It had Win7 on it and all I needed to do was to boot the live CD and it gave me three choices: install Mint alongside Win7, wipe out Win7 and overwrite it with Mint, or a third, user specified option.

I chose the second.

 

[a_unique_person]

Windows 7 now has a proper image backup ability, if you change your mind.

The install disks have adequate ability to format/delete partitions. Just changing from NTFS to the Linux native file system of your choice will be enough to destroy all data from the Windows system.

 

[Zelenius]

When you go through the install for Linux Mint, or Ubuntu, there should be an option to Specify Partitions Manually, instead of the default partition scheme.

"Partitioning properly" is vague. The default installation will create one giant partition and swap.

What a lot of people like to do is create separate partitions for /, /var and /home, so that variable files like log files and such can be kept separate.

The reasons for this are usually so that you can set up a very easy command line backup script that only syncs the data from the /home partition and ignores the log files and such. (No real reason to back those up)

And / would contain all of the linux system directories, and be the bootable partition.

What is it that you're trying to accomplish with the partitioning scheme? Do you think you would like to have something like what I have described?

Edit:
Of course, the backup script might keep some things, perhaps /etc, which would be part of the / partition. Sorry if I'm making this more complicated than it actually is. Tell me what you'd like to accomplish and I'd be glad to help.

-Kevin

Originally I had no intention of partitioning anything(I've never done it manually before), but I keep hearing from a lot of people that partitioning is better from a security and reliability standpoint. On Ubuntu and Linux Mint forums this is often discussed, and some of my techie acquaintances who made the switch to Linux have partitioned hard drives. I realize it is important, but just how essential is it, and what are the consequences of not partitioning for an average Linux user?

The main reason I wanted to partition was for security reasons, since I've had issues with viruses and malware in the past(but only with Windows). I also wanted to do it for educational reasons, since I've never partitioned a hard drive before, not manually anyway. So this is also a learning experience.

I may just go ahead and make the switch and just make the hard drive one big partition using the automatic default settings. If there is a "better" way of doing it though, I'd like to know, especially to make my system more secure. I realize there is no "one size fits all" approach to partitioning, but what you suggest with keeping the log files separate sounds very close to what others have recommended. If you could elaborate further that would be great, since I am but a novice. Thanks for your help.

 

[Zelenius]

Windows 7 now has a proper image backup ability, if you change your mind.

The install disks have adequate ability to format/delete partitions. Just changing from NTFS to the Linux native file system of your choice will be enough to destroy all data from the Windows system.

No, not changing my mind. I already made the switch to Linux years ago, but always kept Windows on separate computer, just in case. I hope no part of Windows or any information survives formatting and switching to Linux Mint.

 

[Zelenius]

I just installed Linux Mint 11 (Gnome) tonight onto my gf's kitchen computer, as a matter of fact. It had Win7 on it and all I needed to do was to boot the live CD and it gave me three choices: install Mint alongside Win7, wipe out Win7 and overwrite it with Mint, or a third, user specified option.

I chose the second.

How is it working so far?

 

[kevinquinnyo]

You won't have to worry about viruses anymore because you aren't running Windows anymore.

As far as security issues with partitioning, that's really more for a webserver, and this is a home computer.

That said, having / and /home isn't a bad idea, as it makes writing backup scripts easier.

For instance if I wanted to use a unix command line tool called rsync to backup everything in home, and ignore the log files, and system files. (I just wanted my personal stuff, music, pictures, work documents, projects, etc) I could do something like this:

rsync -avvrpP /home -e ssh -p <port> remote-machine.com:/home_backup/

Without the /home partition, your backup script will be a bit messier. There are other reasons for this as well, but that's the most practical reason for me.

The reason for partitioning /var separate, is really more a a webserver issue as well. If you had this machine as a webserver, and someone was attacking you, or you had an unusually high amount of traffic before you could truncate the logs, the log files could grow so big the entire disk fills up and you risk data corruption.

So if you have a separate partition for /var, say, 20Gb, then once that fills up, it will simply not be able to write logs, but the machine will still be up and running.

Make sense?


So what I would do if I were you, is just create a / and a /home.

Give / 10G and give /home (the rest of the usable space). It shouldn't be hard in Linux Mint install to do this, I think it's pretty user-friendly.

Good luck, let me know if you have any questions.

-Kevin

Also, you will need to allocate a partition for swap, and you should select "swap" as the filesystem type. You shouldn't need more than 1G of space for this.

 

[Alan]

I haven't heard anything about pre-release versions, but Linux Mint 12 should be coming out next month as Ubuntu 11.10 is 8 days away.

 

[kevinquinnyo]

By the way,

The second part of your question: What are the consequences of not partitioning?

It's not that big of a deal at all. If you just opt for the standard install, and decide you'd like a more custom partitioning scheme, then just reinstall later. There wouldn't be that much to back up of your personal stuff, (it would all probably be in your user directory anyway, and you could slap it on a dvd and reinstall)

 

[Soapy Sam]

Also,

Congrats on making the switch. You'll never go back. Trust me.

Given the comments in the OP, probably not.
But many people do, generally because they are less technically aware than they thought , or find that Linux will not run software they happen to need, but only own in Windows versions.

For which reason, I wish Linux distros were as informative about uninstalling Linux as they usually are about installing.

My advice to anyone putting a toe in the Linux waters for the first time is to run from the cd , at least for a week or two, to find out if this is what they really want to do. That obviously ain't the case here.
I agree with what has already been said- use the install CD itself to do the partitioning, separating /home from the OS and creating a swap partition sized depending on RAM.

 

[The Norseman]

Originally I had no intention of partitioning anything(I've never done it manually before), but I keep hearing from a lot of people that partitioning is better from a security and reliability standpoint. On Ubuntu and Linux Mint forums this is often discussed, and some of my techie acquaintances who made the switch to Linux have partitioned hard drives. I realize it is important, but just how essential is it, and what are the consequences of not partitioning for an average Linux user?

The main reason I wanted to partition was for security reasons, since I've had issues with viruses and malware in the past(but only with Windows). I also wanted to do it for educational reasons, since I've never partitioned a hard drive before, not manually anyway. So this is also a learning experience.

I may just go ahead and make the switch and just make the hard drive one big partition using the automatic default settings. If there is a "better" way of doing it though, I'd like to know, especially to make my system more secure. I realize there is no "one size fits all" approach to partitioning, but what you suggest with keeping the log files separate sounds very close to what others have recommended. If you could elaborate further that would be great, since I am but a novice. Thanks for your help.

As kevin said, partitioning makes it much, much easier to do proper backups and with a separate / (root) and /home directory, you can reinstall a linux flavor without messing with your personal data. Separate partitions aren't super useful with regards to security though unless you're dual booting and when in Windows, it won't recognize a Linux partition.

How is it working so far?

Excellent, thank you! She's so far nervous about learning a new operating system but since she's just using it for a media player and internet in the kitchen, she can do any schoolwork or whatever she needs on a Win7 box in another part of the house, where it's more familiar and comfortable.

The challenging thing is for me to get the Win7 box and Mint box to actually talk to each other and I've been busily scouring the 'net looking for why they won't. *mad* Apparently one of the awesome new changes Microsoft made to Win7 is to be quite unfriendly towards other machines talking to it (sharing files and folders) even to the point that XP and Vista have problems.

I'm actually quite chagrined because I'm a networking guy by schooling, so I feel I should know this stuff!

 

[laca]

Given the comments in the OP, probably not.
But many people do, generally because they are less technically aware than they thought , or find that Linux will not run software they happen to need, but only own in Windows versions.

For which reason, I wish Linux distros were as informative about uninstalling Linux as they usually are about installing.

Ummm, uninstalling an OS: follow the installation instructions of the OS you're installing...

 

[Soapy Sam]

Dual boot in my case, so I wasn't installing anything. Sure, I worked it out , but there's no reason removing software should be harder than loading it. Seriously, I think any software, whether OS or simple app, should have the "How to remove" instructions prominently displayed. I asked on Linux forums and the general response was "Why would anyone want to?" That attitude can put newbies off completely. Most of the folk in threads like this probably install or change an OS more in a year than 99% of PC users will in a lifetime. And those are the people Linux needs to attract if it is ever to become a real competitor to M$.
Microsoft are just as bad,of course, but why copy them?

 

[The Norseman]

What do you mean by 'remove'? Yes, I know the snark of "why would you want to [remove linux]", but there is no clean uninstall for Windows either, nor for Macs. Why should there be one for Linux boxes?

The installation of another OS over the top of the previous one is just considered 'removal' I guess. *shrugs*

Or you can delete the data through various means. Usually repartitioning a drive would do it, even if you're just repartitioning it to the same file system that you had before. For example, you can repartition your c: drive to NTFS, even though with Win7, it's already NTFS.

--------------------
ETA:

Maybe it's a confusion on both parties about the role of an operating system compared to individual applications.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Dual boot in my case, so I wasn't installing anything. Sure, I worked it out , but there's no reason removing software should be harder than loading it. Seriously, I think any software, whether OS or simple app, should have the "How to remove" instructions prominently displayed. I asked on Linux forums and the general response was "Why would anyone want to?" That attitude can put newbies off completely. Most of the folk in threads like this probably install or change an OS more in a year than 99% of PC users will in a lifetime. And those are the people Linux needs to attract if it is ever to become a real competitor to M$.
Microsoft are just as bad,of course, but why copy them?

This is slightly reminiscient of Windows users coming to the Mac platform and inquiring about how to uninstall programs or even complaing that there are no uninstallers.

 

[commandlinegamer]

Seriously, I think any software, whether OS or simple app, should have the "How to remove" instructions prominently displayed.

"$ make uninstall" ?

Seriously though, zero-install packages have been around for quite a while. Download, click-to-use, drag to trash when done.

Most of the folk in threads like this probably install or change an OS more in a year than 99% of PC users will in a lifetime.

Possibly. I can't speak for others but it's been several months since I did a reinstall (latest release of Slackware). Most of my partitions were created more than four years ago.

ETA: Current partitioning scheme over 2 drives.

Disk A / 1GB
Disk A /usr 9 GB (only 5GB actually used with current Slack install)
Disk A /usr/local 2GB (source packages compiled myself)
Disk A /opt (30GB large packages, e.g. games which tend not
to follow the FHS.)
Disk A /home
Disk A /archive (shared stuff, pictures, videos, music. My own customization)
Disk B swap 1GB
Disk B /var 4GB
Disk B /tmp 30 GB

And those are the people Linux needs to attract if it is ever to become a real competitor to M$.

It's not about Linux. If you want to bring it to the mass-market it's got to have the applications.

And if anyone has to lead, it has to be the OEMs, the system builders. Apple took a UNIX core and sold it, with the apps to the masses.Dell, HP, IBM et al, all had UNIX variants for the enterprise, but when it came to domestic markets, their Linux offerings didn't exactly set the world on fire. Had they had the same vision, maybe we wouldn't be living in such a Windows-centric world.