Installation guide

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.
12.19.4 . Recommended Part it ioning Scheme
Unless you have a reason for doing otherwise, we recommend that you create the following
partitions:
A swap partition (at least 256 MB) — swap partitions are used to support virtual memory. In other
words, data is written to a swap partition when there is not enough RAM to store the data your
system is processing.
In years past, the recommended amount of swap space increased linearly with the amount of RAM
in the system. But because the amount of memory in modern systems has increased into the
hundreds of gigabytes, it is now recognized that the amount of swap space that a system needs is
a function of the memory workload running on that system. However, given that swap space is
usually designated at install time, and that it can be difficult to determine beforehand the memory
workload of a system, we recommend determining system swap using the following table.
T ab le 12.2. Reco mmen d ed Syst em Swap Sp ace
Amo u n t o f RAM in t h e Syst em Reco mmen ded Amo u nt of Swap Sp ace
4GB of RAM or less a minimum of 2GB of swap space
4GB to 16GB of RAM a minimum of 4GB of swap space
16GB to 64GB of RAM a minimum of 8GB of swap space
64GB to 256GB of RAM a minimum of 16GB of swap space
256GB to 512GB of RAM a minimum of 32GB of swap space
Note that you can obtain better performance by distributing swap space over multiple storage
devices, particularly on systems with fast drives, controllers, and interfaces.
A PPC PReP boot partition on the first partition of the hard drive — the PPC PReP boot partition
contains the YABOOT boot loader (which allows other POWER systems to boot Red Hat
Enterprise Linux). Unless you plan to boot from a floppy or network source, you must have a PPC
PReP boot partition to boot Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
For IBM System i and IBM System p users: The PPC PReP boot partition should be between 4-8 MB,
not to exceed 10 MB.
A /boot/ partition (100 MB) — the partition mounted on /boot/ contains the operating system
kernel (which allows your system to boot Red Hat Enterprise Linux), along with files used during
the bootstrap process. Due to the limitations of most PC firmware, creating a small partition to
hold these is a good idea. For most users, a 100 MB boot partition is sufficient.
Warning
If you have a RAID card, be aware that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 does not support
setting up hardware RAID on an IPR card. You can boot the standalone diagnostics CD
prior to installation to create a RAID array and then install to that RAID array.
A root partition (3.0 GB - 5.0 GB) — this is where "/" (the root directory) is located. In this setup,
all files (except those stored in /boot) are on the root partition.
Red Hat Ent erprise Linux 5 Inst allat ion G uide
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