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A primary partition simply consists of a continuous range of cylinders (physical disk
areas) assigned to a particular operating system. With primary partitions only, you
would be limited to four partitions per hard disk, because more do not fit in the partition
table. This is why extended partitions are used. Extended partitions are also continuous
ranges of disk cylinders, but an extended partition may itself be subdivided into logical
partitions. Logical partitions do not require entries in the partition table. In other words,
an extended partition is a container for logical partitions.
If you need more than four partitions, create an extended partition as the fourth partition
or earlier. This extended partition should span the entire remaining free cylinder range.
Then create multiple logical partitions within the extended partition. The maximum
number of logical partitions is 15 on SCSI, SATA, and Firewire disks and 63 on (E)IDE
disks. It does not matter which types of partitions are used for Linux. Primary and log-
ical partitions both work fine.
TIP: Hard Disks with a GPT Disk Label
For architectures using the GPT disk label, the number of primary partitions is
not restricted. Consequently, there are no logical partitions.
Required Disk Space
YaST normally proposes a reasonable partitioning scheme with sufficient disk space.
If you want to implement your own partitioning scheme, consider the following recom-
mendations concerning the requirements for different system types.
Minimal System: 500 MB
No graphical interface (X Window System) is installed, which means that only
console applications can be used. Also, only a very basic selection of software is
installed.
Minimal System with Graphical Interface: 700 MB
This includes the X Window System and some applications.
Default System: 1.5 GB
This includes a modern desktop environment, like KDE or GNOME, and also
provides enough space for large application suites like Netscape or Mozilla.
Full Installation: 2.5 GB
All the packages included with SUSE Linux Enterprise are installed.
Installation with YaST
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Troubleshooting
