The Red Hat Documentation Team - Official Red Hat Linux User's Guide

Nearly every modern-day operating system (OS) uses disk partitions, and Red Hat Linux is no exception. When you install Red Hat Linux, you may have to work with disk partitions. When you partition a disk, each partition will behave like a separate disk drive.

If Red Hat Linux will share your system with another OS, you will need to make sure you have enough available disk space on your hard drive(s) for this installation.

The disk space used by Red Hat Linux must be separate from the disk space used by other OSes you may have installed on your system, such as Windows or even a different version of Linux. At least two partitions (/ and swap) must be dedicated to Red Hat Linux.

Before you start the installation process, one of the following conditions must be met:

• Your computer must have enough disk space for the installation of Red Hat Linux. The available disk space must be either unpartitioned disk space or one or more partitions that you can delete.

• You must have one or more partitions that may be deleted so that you can free up enough disk space to install Red Hat Linux.

  Note

  These recommendations are based on an installation that only installs one language (such as English). If you plan to install multiple languages to use on your system, you should increase the disk space requirements.

• The following list describes the installation types you can choose from during the Red Hat Linux installation along with the space requirements for each:

• Personal Desktop — A personal desktop installation, including a graphical desktop environment, requires at least 1.5GB of free space. Choosing both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments requires at least 1.8GB of free disk space.

• Workstation — A workstation installation, including a graphical desktop environment and software development tools, requires at least 2GB of free space. Choosing both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments requires at least 2.3GB of free disk space.

• Server — A server installation requires 1.3GB for a minimal installation without the X Window System (the graphical environment), at least 1.4GB of free space if all package groups other than X are installed, and at least 2.1GB to install all packages including the GNOME and KDE desktop environments.

• Custom — A Custom installation requires 400MB for a minimal installation and at least 4.5GB of free space if every package is selected.