[Novices] Hard Drive Partitioning

[Bruce Smith]

> Not "ignored" so much as unused.  When you HD comes it doesn't have any
> partitions.  You can divide it into UPTO 4 primary partitions.  So a HD
> can have 1, 2, 3 OR 4 "hard" partitions.  I would dare to say that most
> Windows HD's have 1 partition that is the size of the whole HD holding
> everything.  Most Linux systems probably have 2 or 3.  System and swap
> being the first two with a possible third for user accounts, etc.  

Right.  Brock, as user "root" (do a "su -" in a terminal window),
type the command "fdisk -l"  (that's a lowercase "-L", not a one),
and it will display all of your partitions on all your hard drives.
Copy/paste the output here if you have any questions about it.

> In Linux, I don't think the partitions are so critical because Linux
> doesn't use drive letters.  I suspect the only reason swap still has its
> own partition is to make sure swap space never gets mixed with normal
> data in any way, shape or form.  I'll bow to our resident gurus if they
> have a better explanation.

It's possible to put swap in a file, but it's not as efficient, and
another reason it's not done historically is it's a waste to backup
[typically LARGE] swap file(s).

Oh wait, I forgot this is a novice list.  I'll let someone else explain
what a "backup" is (or why they are important) ...    ;-)

 - BS