(Solved) Root and Home Partitions–antiX21

[Member greyowl]

I am in the process of installing antiX 21 (64 bit) on my Dell Latitude D620 laptop which has a 71 GB hard drive.

I am running the installation now. The first question is whether to have root and home separate partitions or to have them on the same partition. Previously, with installation of antiX 19, I didn’t have to decide this question because the installation program decided what to do.

I usually like to use the simplest approach which in this case would be to have root and home on the same partition.
But, the instructions say that having root and home on separate partitions will improve the reliability of operating system upgrades and improve overall performance.

My questions:
Would it make a noticeable difference in performance to have root and home on different partitions or is it just as well to have them together on the same partition?
If I go with two partitions for root and home, what portion of the 71 GB hard drive should I allow for root and home. I don’t just want to guess what to do and then not have enough room for one or the other.

Thanks for your help.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by greyowl.

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Moderator christophe]

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I’d keep it all one partition. 71 GB is small these days, and this gives you the freedom to use the space for new programs OR user files, as you see fit.

If you do split, I’d say maybe 20 GB root, and the rest as home – except for a swap partition. Maybe 1-2 GB swap.

I’ve never noticed a performance difference, personally. And my HDDs tend to be small.

I normally only split up the HDD if I intend to multi-boot.

Just my preferences. YMMV, as they say. 😉

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member greyowl]

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Thanks so much for answering so quickly. I’ll take your advice. It makes good sense to me. : )

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Member seaken64]

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I also keep it all in one partition, especially when the partition is relatively small. I did set up one machine with antiX and used a separate /home partition. When I look at the use of hard drive space the /home is barely used. The root is more used. I think if your prefer to keep it simple then all in one is easiest.

Seaken64

[Member sybok]

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Hi, I agree that 70GB is very small and you may easily run into troubles if using more partitions (being forced to resize them which is potentially risky).

Nevertheless, I personally prefer to set-up separate ‘/’ and /home/’ partitions for easier “recovery” (via reinstall the ‘/’ while preserving ‘/home/’) in the unlikely case (… and I’ve been there already) I mess up my system.
Regarding the root size, I am pretty sure it has been already discussed in the forum elsewhere but I failed to find it quickly.
There was a post with similar topic but in different circumstances:
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/how-to-resize-or-add-more-space-to-a-partion/

Unless you plan to install too many extra programs (such as inkscape, gimp, etc.), 20 GB root suggested by @christophe should suffice.
Also, it is good to run ‘sudo apt autoremove && sudo apt autoclean’ once in a while as it may free up some disk space.

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