What is a partition?
Partitions are parts of disks. They are formatted independently and appear to the user as if they were seperate disks.
Harddrives are so big, that (most times) it makes sense to split them up into more than one piece to manage them. Even if you are running only one operating system (and even if it happens to be Windows), it makes sense to have two partitions: one for your data and one for the system itself. In case you need to reinstall the system, you can format that partition and reinstall/upgrade the system without losing the data. Other scenarios could make use of even more partitions.
Why do I need them?
Every operating system needs at least one partition to “live in”. This is where the main part of the system is stored. Most people who are installing Linux to a computer, already have Windows installed on the harddrive. Usually, that windows installation takes up all space on the harddisk. We need to gain space for Linux. To do that, we could put another harddrive into the computer or change the partitioning of the existing harddrive.
Changing partition sizes on a harddrive used to destroy the data on those partitions that were changed. Today, there are programs which can resize partitions without damaging them. (Although I would not try them with valuable data :)
What do I need to know about them
You should be able to get along with what is written above, especially since partitioning work is more and more integrated into the linux installers. For the curious, there is more information here:
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Welcome to LinuxBasics.org - The online community that helps people to get Linux installed and running.
During this tour, we will guide you through our website, which has many facets which wait to be explored
The biggest project we are running is our Linux course, based on the LBook.
The book is stored in wiki-format, which enables us to update and correct it as we go.
Discussion for the course is on our Forum
Our mailing-list is for any Linux-related question.
The questions and answers from the list are stored in the list's archives in order to help others with the same problems.
Every weekend, we meet to chat in IRC. These meetings are NOT mandatory, but are a nice chance to get to know each other better.
IRC is also a great tool to solve many problems, since it is very quick and easy to ask for more details if you need them.
The tutorials are one of the oldest sections on the LBo-website.
Here you find explanations on how to do specific tasks in Linux. Many of the tutorials were created after a certain problem
has been discussed (and usually solved :) on the mailing-list.
The tutorials are categorized in
In the links section, you find outbound links to other valuable resources.
One of our later additions to the site. We maintain a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project. This is our contribution to the "home of the HOWTOs"
Another later addition is the LBlog which focuses on how to do stuff on the Linux Desktop. It begins with the basics on installing Ubuntu.
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Simply type the search term into the box in the upper-right corner of our webpages
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We are looking forward to meeting you at LinuxBasics.org
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