2.12. Partitioning Your System

At this point, you must tell the installation program where to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This is done by defining mount points for one or more disk partitions in which Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be installed.

Figure 2-9. Partitioning with Disk Druid

The partitioning tool used by the installation program is Disk Druid. With the exception of certain esoteric situations, Disk Druid can handle the partitioning requirements for a typical installation.

2.12.1. Graphical Display of DASD Device(s)

Disk Druid offers a graphical representation of your DASD device(s).

Using your mouse, click once to highlight a particular field in the graphical display. Double-click to edit an existing partition and assign a mount point.

Above the display, you can review the Drive name (such as /dev/dasda), the Geom (which shows the hard disk's geometry and consists of three numbers representing the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors as reported by the hard disk), and the Model of the hard drive as detected by the installation program.

2.12.2. Disk Druid's Buttons

These buttons control Disk Druid's actions. They are used to change the attributes of a partition (for example the file system type and mount point) and also to create RAID devices. Buttons on this screen are also used to accept the changes you have made, or to exit Disk Druid. For further explanation, take a look at each button in order:

2.12.3. Partition Fields

Above the partition hierarchy are labels which present information about the partitions you are creating. The labels are defined as follows:

Hide RAID device/LVM Volume Group members: Select this option if you do not want to view any RAID device or LVM Volume Group members that have been created.

2.12.4. Recommended Partitioning Scheme

Unless you have a reason for doing otherwise, we recommend that you create the following partitions:

2.12.5. Editing Partitions

To edit a partition, select the Edit button or double-click on the existing partition.

NoteNote
 

If the partition already exists on your hard disk, you can only change the partition's mount point. To make any other changes, you must delete the partition and recreate it.