Author Topic: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1  (Read 1408 times)

Adrian

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Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« on: August 20, 2025, 08:51:49 pm »
Hi,

What is the best partition size for an installation for ArcaOS 5.1.1?
The problem is not less disk space but to much.
I have a BIOS laptop with a SSD of 256Gb.
The boot partition for ArcaOS is 64Gb JFS.
When I tried to install WP 5.2 for OS/2 or Coreldraw! 2.5, mostly the installation aborted on disk space.
When I try other (old) software, the most cannot handle the space.
So, what is the best size for a boot partition for ArcaOS and programs?

Grts,
Adrian

Pete

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2025, 12:03:10 am »
Hi Adrian

You should consider a minimum of 3 volumes (partitions)

1] Boot - for ArcaoS you do not need a large partition, I use a 2Gb HPFS boot volume

2] Apps - Obviously the volume to install applications to, you'll probably find a 50Gb JFS volume more than sufficient

3] Data - a volume to store your created data files, browser profiles and TEMP directory, use rest of ssd formatted JFS for this volume


With the above setup it is possible to update/re-install the OS without losing any applications or data.

Regarding the too large disk problem that older apps can have I think you need to install something called 2GBFIX... It is included with ArcaOS in [install media/iso image]:\CID\SERVER\ARCAPKG\2GBFIX.ZIP
Hopefully someone else will jump in if I have pointed you to the wrong fix.


Regards

Pete


Dave Yeo

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2025, 01:53:57 am »
There's always the option of having another partition of 2GB, or slightly smaller for those old programs.
As for boot partition, it depends on things like where the RPM stuff is and even HOME is used more. Here, I have 8GB for boot and the RPM stuff etc has filled a good chunk of it. Used to put the RPM stuff on a different partition.

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2025, 03:07:07 am »
64 GB is fine.

Those old programs are from an era when disks came in MB, not GB. Make a scratch volume of 500 MB and install onto that. After that, you can probably move it to the real boot volume.
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Doug Bissett

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2025, 05:51:01 am »
I quit using HPFS, years ago. Two major reasons:

1: The HPFS cache uses lower shared memory space, which is often critical to get other things to work.

2: When a CHKDSK is necessary, at boot time, JFS is a lot faster, and less likely to corrupt something.

Since modern disks are not really limited by size, I use 5 GB for boot drives (4 GB is plenty, but what the heck), and I keep the UNIXROOT on the boot drive. I also do not split data and programs, to different drives, but that is up to you. You may want a FAT32 drive, to share data with windows (FAT32 is VERY slow, even when it is on a NVME drive). If you want to install an ancient program that balks at the free space, install it to the boot drive, then move it if you want to.

Adrian

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #5 on: August 21, 2025, 07:44:15 pm »
Hi Adrian

You should consider a minimum of 3 volumes (partitions)

1] Boot - for ArcaoS you do not need a large partition, I use a 2Gb HPFS boot volume

2] Apps - Obviously the volume to install applications to, you'll probably find a 50Gb JFS volume more than sufficient

3] Data - a volume to store your created data files, browser profiles and TEMP directory, use rest of ssd formatted JFS for this volume


With the above setup it is possible to update/re-install the OS without losing any applications or data.

Hi Pete,

Is that possible?
And the settings writing in config.sys and the *.ini files?

Grts, Adrian


Regarding the too large disk problem that older apps can have I think you need to install something called 2GBFIX... It is included with ArcaOS in [install media/iso image]:\CID\SERVER\ARCAPKG\2GBFIX.ZIP
Hopefully someone else will jump in if I have pointed you to the wrong fix.


Regards

Pete

Pete

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2025, 12:11:11 am »
Hi Adrian

You would need to edit config.sys file to point to correct locations eg:-
rem home
SET HOME=I:\Home
rem logs
SET LOGFILES=J:\var\log
rem Seamonkey/Firefox profiles
SET MOZILLA_HOME=I:\
rem programs
SET PROGRAMS=J:\Programs
rem unix stuff including rpm
SET UNIXROOT=J:
rem temp directory - note variations in use
SET TMP=I:\Temp
SET TEMP=I:\Temp
SET TMPDIR=I:\Temp

You would also need to check and adjust as necessary entries in the PATH and LIBPATH


If you need to change application settings in an INI file use an INI editor such as INI Editor from INI Tools package https://hobbesarchive.com/?search=INITools_1-10r2.zip


Regards

Pete
« Last Edit: August 22, 2025, 12:20:34 am by Pete »

Dave Yeo

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Re: Advised ideal partition size for install ArcaOS 5.1.1
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2025, 06:20:19 am »
There are backup programs for the WPS floating around. Haven't used one for a long time but basically back up the desktop directory, the ini files, config.sys and such.