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I am trying to make my laptop dual boot with Windows 10 and Ubuntu. My laptop is having 8 GB ram and a 1 TB hard disk. The max I can devote to Ubuntu is 250 GB.

Now I am trying to understand clearly how much space needs to be allocated to each mount point. Below are the few points I understood

  1. /swap :- used to move files if RAM runs out. It should be greater than 2XRAM. So I can dedicate 16 GB.

  2. /root :- It is like Local Disk C in Windows. It stores all the Ubuntu OS files. I can put 30 GB under it.

  3. /home :- It will be hard drive for my Ubuntu. So rest all can be put in here.

Now some instructions are telling me to create a partition for / . I tried to read & it was written that this partition stores programme files. I am not able to understand the difference between / & /root. Can anyone please once explain the difference to me and also how much space I should allot to it & even if other partitions need more or less space.

Thank you.

Zanna
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Brijesh
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1 Answers1

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The directions you're following may confuse "/root" (home directory for user root) with root ("/") of the file system.

"/" is the root of the file system (min 8GB for desktop systems)

"/home" is where each user's data live (can get very large)

"/root" is where root's data live (very little to no data actually lives here). Not worth making a separate mount point.

99% of what you do, you do as a user. Your data goes in the "/home/username" directory. Also on real multi-user servers, quotas are setup on "/home" but not on "/root"

A reason some people use a separate mount point for "/home" is to re-install the OS (format, wipe data on "/") while preserving data in "/home" (no format, just mount).

Windows users can do the same thing; "C:" is the OS and "D:" is you data. Re-install windows by wiping out "C:" but "D:" stays intact. After reinstall, you can remount "D:" as a folder on "C:" (just like linux mount points).

Personally, I'd just make two partitions:

  • ext4 partition, mount point "/" - as much space as possible
  • swap partition, 2x RAM

If you want to play with "growing" mount points, use LVM. Before LVM, admins would use different partitions for mount points. After LVM, admins could grow a volume as needed across new disks or even between volumes, wherever space was needed. What you're choosing to do is create separate file systems for each mount point; if your root partition runs out of space, you can't add space without booting from a live CD and using gparted to resize the partition--that's not easy to do remotely.

All the mount point options that you see will be folders off "/". I'd recommend a root file system as big as you available space and a swap partition. Less hassle since you're the only user.

VXDguy
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