reassign 640377 partman-auto thanks Quoting Witold Baryluk (baryluk@smp.if.uj.edu.pl): > Package: debian-installer > Severity: normal > > Hi. > > I am normally using FAI to installing Debian boxes, > but I was evaluating migration to amd64 from i386, > so needed some more control. Mostly applications > (some are i386 only), and some user testing if > everything is OK. > > I done this manually using squeezy installer, > as our FAI box is configured to serve i386 Debian, > and I do not see any easy way to have both > i386 and amd64 on the same FAI machine. > > I just wanted to do this quickly so used squeeze biarch > DVD. I also just used "guided partitioning". > > It is similar to the #575914 bug > ( debian-installer: cannot resize partitions after "guided partitioning" step ) > > > So, I have 250GB SATA disk, and automatic partitioning > with multiple partitions ended with /usr having 8.3GB (df -h). > > I rebooted, and started installing sofware with apt-get. > > I was in the middle of installing software (everything from > normal Debian repositories), when /usr space > run out. I comparred to the other boxes, and most use about 12GB > of space in /usr. > > It is not really big installation, just a workstation software, > full gnome, kde, xfce, openoffice, few other important software, > multiple compilers and development libraries. > Inspecting packages on other machines, > we have about 3000-3380 packages installed. > We have list of packages which are automatically installed > by FAI, and I was using exactly same list. > http://smp.if.uj.edu.pl/~baryluk/fai/KOLO_WS > > I guess, this 8GB /usr partition is some kind > of celling in the debian-installer, but 14GB will be much > better for really big HDDs, especially if someone > wants to install both kde and gnome, and still wants 1-2 GB > for things like Mathematica or Quake 3 in /usr/local. :) > > User will be safe, if he/she puts everything on single partition, > or separate /home probably, but when he/she choose > separate /var, /usr and /tmp, he will have trouble. > > I just checked recipes/multi file in the > git://anonscm.debian.org/d-i/partman-auto.git > and it says 9000 MB is the max for /usr > > I think we can assume amd64 is new enough, > and user have quite big hard disk. (at least on amd64). > > Actully I find that not so long ago (Oct 2010), > in commit b639042b331dc, changed /usr > from 6000MB to 9000MB. > > Previous change was from 5000MB to 6000MB, > in May 2010 in commit 0cfe282142e2905. > > I know 14GB may sound like huge jump from 9GB. > So, I think limiting this to amd64, and maybe some > additional small logic (like having at least 200GB free > space used for autopartitioning), should solve it. > > I inspected serveral different machines installed > by me, desktops, laptops, installed manually, > or using FAI. And 12GB used in /usr was almost > on all of them. Some machines used about 14GB, > because for example of Mathematica or Intel Compiler. > > It is also good to slightly over-estimate size, as > over-estimating doesn't hurt much (maybe other partition > will have smaller size), in the oposition to under > estimating size. Also having /usr filled too much > will make it highly fragmented, thus drastically > decressing performance and boot+login speed. > > Also people who use multi parition profile, > tend to be a) wanting server, b) wanting > workstation used by multiple people, c) > desktop or laptop of advanced user, which > likes to experiment. > > In cases 2 and 3 in most situations, we will need > quite big /usr space needs, in range about 12-14GB > range. > > Other aspect is LVM. On LVM it is much smaller issue, > as one can increase file system by borowing space > from other logical volume. However, I always > find that I decress /home LV, and give some more > room for /usr, not always just after installation, > but it always happen, even if I was partitioning > disk manually. By making defaults bigger we can > avoid that, and we will not waste space anyway, > as user still can use LVM to do the reverse > (decress size of /usr, and give it to /var or /home, etc). > Reverse however is less probably, it will also > make underlaying partition extents of /usr, be > more continous on the disk, thus also improving > seek times and file system layout. > > Another reason is that amd64 binaries tends to be slightly > larger than i386 (about 10%), and that gcc 4.6 recently often > produces bigger object files (depending on flags). > Actually ia64 architecture would see biggest > benefit from this change, binaries there are 2.1x bigger > on avarage (sometimes more) than on i386 or amd64. > ia64 have currently only 7000 MB in /usr in multi partition scheme, > by default, combining it with much bigger object files, > it would be good to increase it. Other archs, could also > have similar problem, but probably only alpha and sparc64, > are reasonable candidates. > > Here is good, representative example > http://packages.debian.org/sid/links > which shows how installed package size varies > beetwen arcitectures. This pattern is common > for lots of binary packages. > > > tl;dr: Increase default maximal size of /usr to 13GB > on amd64, kfreebsd-amd64 and ia64 > > Still would be good to have #575914 fixed, one could > adjust partition sizes after autopartitioning assigned > sizes automatically. > There's some time now that nobody revisited partman-auto defaults. Something should probably be done. Volunteers welcome..:-)
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature