I would not suggest worrying about using logical partitions in Linux. Though I don't really know, I suspect that there might be a little more overhead in accessing them (at least for mounting) but even if there is some for an aready mounted partition, it is my experience that you won't "see" the difference.
I personally know that I have had at least 3 primary and 4 logical partitions per drive. It seems to me that I have had more than 4 logical partitions on one drive but memory being what it is (mine that is), I can not be certain. As to having both a stable and unstable Debian Linux system on your machine at one time... I have had as many as five different Linux systems on one machine at the same time (two Red Hat, two Debian, one Unifix) plus DOS and OS2. No problem (though getting DOS and OS2 installed under such circumstances can be a serious pain!) Sharing directories... While I am sure that there are many opinions about this, mine is that it is fine to share /tmp and /swap. Sharing /home is, at least in my opinion, some what dangerous. Many configuration files will exist in the users' directories and you may find yourself with incompatible versions. I don't necessarily see this a a big problem, just one that will 'bite you' at the most unexpected times. Also, if you want to play around with things like mail deliver systems, having a common /home might cause you to break your mail on all systems. I see /usr/local as a different matter. Right now, the libc5/libc6 "problem" with Linux could cause you problems if you have a /usr/local/bin, usr/local/lib, etc. but otherwise I think it should be "safe". On previous configurations, I always shared /usr/src but with a debian system, I think even that can be problematical (a solution, I believe is to always install from only one of the systems -- but I have not tried that yet). best, -bill robert havoc pennington wrote: > How hard should I try to avoid logical partitions? What's the impact > of using them? > > I'm about to get a new mainboard and disk to replace my trusty > 386sx, and I was hoping to use more than four partitions. > > Another question: I was thinking of installing both stable and > unstable. They can be rescue partitions for one another, and if > unstable does weird things while I need to get some work done I > can abandon ship and switch to stable. Also I can play with > unstable without fear of destroying my only system. :) > > Anyway, I'm hoping to share /home, swap, and /tmp between the two > systems. Are there any other directories I can share? Maybe > /usr/local? Is this a good idea in general? Anything I should > consider before trying it? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
