LinuxInstall.Net Podcast Episode 6 - How to format a disk for Linux

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We discuss the fact that KDE is offically the default desktop now for OpenSuSe and if tr.im can find the right open source model? Then we disucss partitioning a disk for Linux. We explain the good the bad and the ugly of that part of the install. For more notes look at http://linuxinstall.net/podcast/

Update on Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 1:12AM by Brian "Wags" Wagner

episode 6
1) Introduction
E-Mail us at podcast@linuxinstall.net
Go to the WebSite to call us via Google Voice off of the Podcast link
Follow us on Twitter @linuxinstall

2) News
KDE is offically the default desktop now for OpenSuSe
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2009-08/msg00548.html

Can tr.im find the Right open source model? and the 2nd story is about tr.im going open source as well

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4677

http://ostatic.com/blog/url-shortening-service-tr-im-to-become-open-source-project


3) Topic of the night - Partition layout options
When doing an install of Linux you have a lot of options. What do those options mean?
1) File System Type - Discussed in detail last week
2) To encrypt home directories or not to encrypt home directories
3) LVM - Brief descriptions of the following:
a) what is it
b) what does it mean
c) What does it do for me
d) how should I set it up
4) File System layout - Recommendations
Ubuntu and others do a monolithic / or root directory with only /boot and swap split off on their own. This is fine for a desktop in most cases but never a good idea if you are or want to run a server. The problem with it is that it you can actually hang the system if you fill it up with logs for instance.
Figuring most people will have at least a 160GB disk here is what I would recommend.
/boot - 512MB
swap - For systems under 1GB double RAM for systems over 1GB Equal RAM - Why?
/var/log - 2048GB
/ - 100 GB
That will leave you with just over 50GB on the LVM to use later to expand discks.

4) Distro Watch Report

5) Conclusion
E-Mail us at podcast@linuxinstall.net

Go to the WebSite to call us via Google Voice
Follow us on Twitter @linuxinstall

SCO is back in the game...

It seems that the court of appeals, while granting the $2.5 Million dollar pay-out to Novell, didn't think they could say that Novell still owned the copyright.  So Novell and SCO will be heading back to court to settle it.  That is if SCO can actually afford to do that.  Since they have filed for Chapter 11 protection they have been appointed a Trustee.  The Trustee and not the Management of SCO get's to decide if it's in the lean holders best interest to follow through on the case.  We will have to wait and see where this winding road goes...

Check out thee articles for more details

The H Open Article

The Register

LinuxInstall.net Podcast Episode 5

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In this Episode we discuss The FriendFeed Facebook purchase and OpenSuse's debate about KDE....The topic of the night is File Systems

Update on Monday, August 24, 2009 at 11:55PM by Brian "Wags" Wagner

Episode 5
1) Intro
2) News:
Facebook
OpenSUSE


3) File System Types:
What is a file System?
Why do I care?
What is the difference between Raid and a file system?
What is the difference between a journaling(sp) and non-journaling(sp) file system?
Common File Systems:
A General Overview slide deck from IBM about file systems - http://jp.linuxfoundation.org/jp_uploads/seminar20060911/Ted_Tso.pdf
Man Page for FS - http://linux.die.net/man/5/fs
Wikipedia Comparison chart - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems

The EXT file system family: EXT2, EXT3,EXT4
EXT2 - http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2intro.html
EXT2&3 - http://www.softpanorama.org/Internals/Filesystems/linux_ext2_ext3.shtml
EXT4 - http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions

ReiserFS (Creator in Jail for Murder)(first stable incarnation of a journaling filesystem on Linux)(most popular EXT2)
A 2001 article about Rieserfs and how it will soon be the first journaling file system bundled with the Kernel http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/2926/1/

ZFS (New from Sun) http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/

JFS http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-jfs.html

ramfs http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt
XFS
The SGI pages for XFS pointed us to the open sourced version of the file system located here - http://xfs.org/index.php/Main_Page
VFAT/NTFS
These are the old standby's from Microsoft.

4) Distro Watch Update (http://bit.ly/4sAhmm)
5) Conclusion

ZDNet.com has a cool series of articles about Linux....

This section of their site gets into how to use Linux in the enterprise.   Lots of good resources there.  http://bit.ly/xqCBf

Shell commands for Reading Multiple Files with Bash....

Reading Multiple Files with Bash

This article does a great job of explaining how to read and parsing multiple files http://bit.ly/IwQRi

These are the typ of things that make Linux so Darn Powerful....