Disk partitioning strategy: Summary
Here is a summary of the replies I've received, some of which were echoed
on the list and some not.
Thanks to the following for their comments and suggestions:
Buddha Buck
Dirk Eddelbuettel
David L. Johnson
Charles Morgan
Stephen Early
Carl Greco
You can get by with one big partition and a swap partition, BUT ...
Multiple partitions can limit the scope of disk problems (bad sectors,
corrupt file system, lost data, run-away processes (space, inodes,
directory levels)) to the area covered by the partition. Backups
are simpler with partitions (small partitions fit on tapes better,
/usr does not need backups as frequently as /home). If a partition
does go bad, reinstalling from CD is an option for the system
directories, but not /home.
The favored solution seems to be to subdivide the directory structure
along the lines indicated in the file system standard document
(fsstnd-1.2.txt).
Partition Purpose
------------------------
/ minimal files for rebooting
/var news, tmp, mail spool, print spool, cron, ...
/usr bulk of OS and 'official' packages
/usr/local isolate local programs from OS changes and upgrades
/tmp link to /var/tmp (let /tmp fight with /var for space)
/home user home directories
swap swap space (2 or more time RAM)
The following sizes seem appropriate to me for my drive (1.6 GB).
Partition Size
---------------------
/ 30 MBytes
/var 40 MBytes (depends on number of users, news usage, email)
/usr 450 MBytes (room for everything on dist with 120 MB free)
/usr/local 150 MBytes
/tmp 0 MBytes (sym link to /var/tmp)
/home 880 MBytes
swap 50 MBytes (ample for 16 MBytes RAM, could be cut to 2x RAM)
People might get by with much smaller /home partitions. /usr could
easily be 350 MBytes. /usr/local could be dropped or reduced.
Peter Halvorson
Siemens Power Corp
pjh@nfuel.com
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