[Linux4christians] Welcome

[Michael Hart]

On 11/7/2011 1:07 PM, Fred A. Miller wrote:
> Hi Ken, glad to have to join us! I've been using Linux for a very long 
> time.....since SuSE 5.0, if I remember correctly, and I also go back 
> to pre-DOS, that is CP/M days. I had a Kaypro 2X which I modified the 
> MBO so I could have 4 full-sized (that's what we had back then as you 
> know) hard drives, and found a way to get Perfect Filer to handle a 
> LOT more fields than it was supposed to....was written up in "Profiles 
> Mag." for that effort. Had a LOT of fun running QNX and Qtac2 for a 
> BBS. 8-)
>
> Anyway, what I have done for sometime, is to keep /home in it's 
> entirety and NOT to format it. I also keep all my graphic files, 
> music, movie clips, etc., in a partition I label /local. Only files 
> created by Open Office or more recently Libre Office are in my /home 
> partitian. I also have found that for servers and/or desktops that 
> there are a number of ways you can partitian a hard drive, and all of 
> them seem to work well. But, I have standardized on the following, 
> which may or may not be of help to you or someone else. With the 
> assumption of a 1-T hard drive, the following is what that "standard" 
> partition structure looks like, with the allocated space.
>
> / = 30GB
> /swap = 32GB ( I have 16GB in the box...rule of thumb is to double 
> swap of your RAM).
> /home = 30GB (2 users, my wife and me)
> /local = Balance of hard drive.
>
> This is all on a box I built around an Intel Core i7 2600 3.4Ghz., 
> which I have running at 4.3Ghz. with 1600Mhz. RAM. Also a Thermaltake 
> V1 cooler for the CPU, cooler for the RAM, and 4 120mm fans to cool it 
> all. This so you all know over-clocking ISN'T a problem for Linux! 
> Windows 7 DOESN'T like an over-clocked box at all! There's a way 
> around that, but I'm sure no one here is interested in how to do that. 
> O:-)
>
> Hope this helps someone. 

One secret for this to be successful is to change your login ID 
everytime you upgrade/install another distro, so your new home folder 
isn't your old home.  This allows you to settle in and be able to revert 
nicely to the earlier version if something doesn't copy over properly. 
That is, if your primary user login is "ken" on the distro "magicbox 7", 
when you upgrade to magicbox 8, install to a different partition for 
/root, point your home to the same /home partition as magicbox 7, and 
make your user account "kenmb8".  That way you can rummage through the 
home folder for mb 7 and copy over anything relavent without breaking 
magicbox 7 if magicbox 8 crashes hopelessly the second time you boot it.

chown and chmod are your friend for copying from one user folder to 
another.