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 <sect1>
 <title>Recommended Partitioning Scheme</title>
<para>

For new users, personal &debian; boxes, home systems, and other
single-user setups, a single <filename>/</filename> partition (plus
swap) is probably the easiest, simplest way to go.  The recommended
partition type is ext4.

</para><para>

For multi-user systems or systems with lots of disk space, it's best
to put <filename>/var</filename>,
<filename>/tmp</filename>, and <filename>/home</filename> each on
their own partitions separate from the <filename>/</filename>
partition.

</para><para>

You might need a separate <filename>/usr/local</filename> partition if
you plan to install many programs that are not part of the &debian;
distribution.  If your machine will be a mail server, you might need
to make <filename>/var/mail</filename> a separate partition.
If you are setting up a server with lots
of user accounts, it's generally good to have a separate, large
<filename>/home</filename> partition.  In general, the partitioning
situation varies from computer to computer depending on its uses.

</para><para>

For very complex systems, you should see the
<ulink url="&url-multidisk-howto;">
Multi Disk HOWTO</ulink>.  This contains in-depth information, mostly
of interest to ISPs and people setting up servers.

</para><para>

With respect to the issue of swap partition size, there are many
views.  One rule of thumb which works well is to use as much swap as
you have system memory. It also shouldn't be smaller than 512MB, in
most cases.  Of course, there are exceptions to these rules.

</para><para>

As an example, an older home machine might have 512MB of RAM and a
20GB SATA drive on <filename>/dev/sda</filename>. There might be a
8GB partition for another operating system on
<filename>/dev/sda1</filename>, a 512MB swap partition on
<filename>/dev/sda3</filename> and about 11.4GB on
<filename>/dev/sda2</filename> as the Linux partition.

</para><para>

For an idea of the space taken by tasks
you might be interested in adding after your system installation is
complete, check <xref linkend="tasksel-size-list"/>.

</para>

 </sect1>
