[NTLUG:Discuss] Dual boot filesystems

[David Neeley]

Although in some areas I'm still pretty much a newbie,
I happen to have studied the filesystem stuff pretty
carefully when I was setting up my own machine. Here
are some of the issues you might consider:

1. I presume you'll be running LILO or System
Commander on hda1-unless your BIOS can set hdb1 as the
boot drive.

2. On the 8.4 GB Maxtor, be sure the boot partition
lives within the 1024 cylinder limit.

3. I'd suggest putting as little on a shared FAT
partition as you can get away with. The FAT system is
pretty slow, wastes space, and is not as stable as you
might wish. IMHO, keeping the box connected to the
samba box on the LAN with the shared data residing
there would be optimal. That way, critical data for
all users can be backed up more readily. In my
experience, sys admins are more dependable to backup
servers than most users are to back up their
individual systems. Besides, data is generally a much
smaller concern than applications are. Backups become
fairly painless because it can be done more quickly,
on smaller media, etc.

4. On the data partition, wherever it resides, you
might also keep copies of the configuration files for
Linux and Windows. Reloading your systems if all else
fails would be much easier. Also, if you happen to
have a clueless user who screws up the config on
either system, you can get it back to stability pretty
easily.

5. If you have a boot partition for the Linux system
on hda, you can have the big new disk run even faster
by not worrying about recognizing it in the BIOS
setup. Linux doesn't need it, and I'm told can run
somewhat faster if it controls the formatting and
configuration of a second drive.

Good luck.

David Neeley

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