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Barabas_Dantioch

Member

Registered: 2019-03-08

Posts: 1  

Questions on Installation of Devuan such as Partitioning, etc.

Hardware: Thinkpad T420s
- 320 GB Hard Disk, 4 GB ram (currently in single channel mode), Intel HD Graphics (no nVidia GPU), currently running on Windows 10 Pro.

Situation: I am kinda annoyed since Windows 10 tends to update when I need it to just work (in the middle of class, or when its near the term paper submission deadlines, so I wanted to move to Linux, and Devuan seems like a good choice). I want to do a manual installation so I can dual boot Windows 10 in case I need to. However, I'm clueless (new to Linux) when it comes to the partitioning stage (most Linux youtubers just pick the "use entire disk/erase disk" option since they run Devuan in VirtualBox).

1. How many partitions should I create? Root, Home, Swap, or Just Root and Swap? What happens to Home if I don't create it as a separate partition?
2. How much storage should I give the individual partitions given my laptop's HDD capacity?
3. Post-installation: how do I install media codecs and drivers? What are the drivers I will need on a mostly Intel laptop?
4. Given my hardware specs, which DE should I use with Devuan?
5. Additional question: when is the next version of Devuan coming?

Thanks in Advance

Panopticon

Member

Registered: 2018-01-27

Posts: 306  

Re: Questions on Installation of Devuan such as Partitioning, etc.

The problem with windows update is that it is automatic and the user doesnt have any say in when and how the system is to be updated and upgraded, you accept the eula you agree to the tos.

Before you venture into linux make sure you are aware of the differences between microsoft and gnu/linux.

You can create as many partitions as your system will allow, first you need to determine the partition scheme in windows before venturing into linux as windows may have taken the lion share of the partiton scheme of your hdd.

Generally your best bet would be to look at how to succesfully dual boot your current setup of windows with linux.

Also consider that Devuan is a fork of Debian, being systemd free and uses sysv or openrc as init for booting the system.

Have a read over this link before asking more questions.

https://wiki.debian.org/WindowsDualBoot

also search this forum, there are many helpful threads.

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=1561

To be honest i dont recommend dual booting linux alongside windows, just too much room for errors. I would encourage you to use 1 hard drive for gnu/linux only and ditch windows. If you cant ditch windows, stay with it but consider another computer for linux tasks,as i believe going forward the dual boot scenario is just going to get messy.

Last edited by Panopticon (2019-03-08 16:22:23)

dxrobertson

Member

Registered: 2017-05-04

Posts: 232  

Re: Questions on Installation of Devuan such as Partitioning, etc.

Its been a while since I dual booted, so I will leave the details for someone else to provide (hopefully).  last time I dual booted, I decided how much disk I needed for the entire Linux, performed the "shrink" within windows, then installed Linux and created the partitions as part of the install.

But as @Panopticon points out, it is much cleaner to not dual boot, I havent done it since EFI is used.

1. How many partitions should I create? Root, Home, Swap, or Just Root and Swap? What happens to Home if I don't create it as a separate partition?

I just use a swap and root.  In doing so everything else (home) is under root.  "Root" just means the base / directory.  Home is 1 directory below /;  /home.  Nowdays I also create a separate partition to store data I keep across installs, you could just use your windows for this. 

Not sure about dual booting, but with a Linux only install using EFI, you also need an ESP as partition 1.  100MB is fine.  I think windows already uses this partition?

2. How much storage should I give the individual partitions given my laptop's HDD capacity?

4GB ram;  4GB for swap should be fine.  Opinions vary on this.  Linux itself should easily use under 5-10 GB for the initial install.  I dont know, 100G?  And 100MB for ESP partition 1 if its not already there.

3. Post-installation: how do I install media codecs and drivers? What are the drivers I will need on a mostly Intel laptop?

If you select and install from the "non-free" repositories during the install, all should work out of the box.  Intel should work out of the box.  You may want to check what your wifi hardware is and make sure its supported.  Wifi seems to be where trouble appears for support.  As long as your hardware is not VERY new, you should be ok.

4. Given my hardware specs, which DE should I use with Devuan?

You should be ok with any of them.  This is personal preference.  Xfce is solid.  I see mate mentioned alot.  I have been using LXQT lately, like it.

5. Additional question: when is the next version of Devuan coming?

Someone else can chime in here, I thought I read somewhere Devuan strives for a 2 year cycle, so should be soon.  Many of us are running from testing, its been stable.

Last edited by dxrobertson (2019-03-08 17:30:01)