Certification Objective 2.05: Required Disk Space

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Most new computers come with very large disks, easily supporting even the 4GB of files associated with a full installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If you do not have this much space available, you should carefully consider the space requirements associated with each type of installation. When considering the following options, remember to leave adequate room for swap space, personal files, log files, and any applications that you may want to install after RHEL installation is complete.

On The Job 

It's common to install Linux on older computers with limited hard disk space. Linux functions quite well on older computers. It's common to configure such computers as servers for DNS, DHCP, NIS, and more. However, RHEL 3 does require at least Pentium-level 200 MHz CPU support, so you can't install it on the oldest computers

How Much More Space Is Needed?

The question of disk space needed over and above operating system needs is always relevant. Make sure to have extra room. The absolute minimum for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS is around 600MB of disk space, if you install Linux with few server services and without the X Window System. With 1000MB, you could probably sneak in the X Window, but you still wouldn't have enough room for more than a few server services. You still should have at least 100MB or more to work with. And if you want GNOME or KDE, you'll need another 200MB or so.

You'll also need to add room for swap space. By default, Red Hat usually configures a swap partition that is about twice the amount of RAM on your computer. The minimum requirement in RHEL 3 is a swap partition that equals the amount of RAM on your system. The actual swap partition size depends on the RAM and the size of the hard disk on your system.

The actual amount of swap space that you may need is a highly debatable issue. Some suggest that Linux computers can use a swap partition that is up to three or even four times the amount of available RAM. Others suggest that at higher levels of RAM, 100MB of swap space is more than sufficient.

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