Ideal Setup help needed.

[dalgar]

Now that I have had a chance to play with Ultimate Edition and learn how to install etc... I would like some recommendations on getting a great setup.
Here are my specs.
Intel DUO Core 2.2Ghz
3gb Ram (may upgrade to 4gb this weekend. Fry's has a great buy)
1TB HD(x2) SATA

What I was thinking was doing a RAID 1 since I do a lot of video, and photo editing. I really do not want to lose my hard work.
When installing if I understand it right I need to use the EXT3 sytstem
Mount point for /
Mount point for /home
Mount point for swap

The question is size.
Swap = mem size
but how much for / and /home?
Don't all the app install to the /home partition?

When I used windows I set up a 50gb partion for the OS and so called virtual memory (read swap)
Then I setup a min of 100gb partions since M$ has issues with anything larger (and don't let them lie to you) for installing apps to.
I NEVER let apps install into the c:\ partition if I could avoid it.

So any suggestions would be appreciated. I want to install this and enjoy it.

Thanks a mil!

[pch.shot]

Instead of spending more money on ram invest in a small fast hard drive for your operating system and software(i.e. raptor 10k) and store all your stuff on the larger drives. You probably will not need a swap partition with that much ram. That way when your operating system decides to screw up all you need to do is re-install and you still have all your data safe. many thanx, pch

[dalgar]

Instead of spending more money on ram invest in a small fast hard drive for your operating system and software(i.e. raptor 10k) and store all your stuff on the larger drives. You probably will not need a swap partition with that much ram. That way when your operating system decides to screw up all you need to do is re-install and you still have all your data safe. many thanx, pch

OK I can use the 40gb hd I have just sitting here. If I understand use the 40gb for / and the 1tb hd's in a raid array for everything else?

As for the ram, I was assuming since I can use virtualbox I could assign 2gb to it for when I have to run WinBlows to test software. This is what I do for a living. Software QA. Unfortunately I work in an M$ shop. But, I figured at home I could run Ubuntu as main OS and use virtualbox to run the M$ crud that I *must* run. Being able to give 2gb to the virtualbox should allow the bloat OS to run efficiently enough.

Thanks for your input.

[DaddyX3]

Well I would have to agree. You don't need 4GB worth of ram unless you are doing some serious high end CAD programming. If you want speed I would highly recommend doing as pch suggests but multiply it by two. In other words, get two raptors and raid 0 them! You'll be a seriously happy puppy
As far as how much for each partition ... You have a TB drive! I would give yourself about 50GiB for the / partition, and another 50GiB for the /home partition. Then I would seriously think about your video editing hobby and what other media you like to play with, and install a separate /Movies partition - /music, and whatever else you would like. Then just make the default save file locations to those partitions What it really boils down too is preference.

[dalgar]

Thanks for the input.
Since I can't convince my wife I need to spend another 300 for the raptor drives since I do not have those I will be doing the following:

Take the two 300gb I have back all the data to dvd and the make those raid 0.
Take the 1TB (x2) and raid 1 them.

On the Raid 0 I will create
50GiB /
125GiB /home
125GiB /apps

Now when installing apps as I have said they install to the /home? Can I install them to the /apps? If I can't then I will combine the /apps and /home for a 250GiB partion.

On the 1TB Raid 1 I will create
/downloads
/movies
/music
etc.....



Thanks for the input folks.

[pch.shot]

Have you tried flowers and chocolates yet?
Seriously, check this out: http://www.directron.com/wd360adfd.html
many thankx, pch

[dalgar]

Thanks a Mil! PCH!