> > - swap partition
> > - root partition
> > - /usr partition
> > - /home partition
> > The advantage of this setup is not explained. Can anyone explain the advantage
> > of splitting up a large drive into multible partitions
My own take on this. . . (warning: stop reading here)
There are lots of advantages to splitting up your hard drive space. I don't think
any of them have to do with the old DOS-style 'this-drive-is-too-big' problem; I'm
pretty sure that e2fs will handle VERY large partitions without complaining. In my
experience, most of the reasons have to do with fending off disaster.
Note that the swap partition doesn't normally have a filesystem, is qualitatively
different from other partitions, and should therefore be isolated, purely as a
matter of my own opinion.
In addition to the partitions above, I recommend also making /var seperate.
While it does seem more convenient to use one big partition so that you can use all
of your space as efficiently as possible, there are some pitfalls to this, most of
which have to do with sloppy users and/or the unforeseen goof that slips past you
and only makes itself known when your system starts to crash. For example, suppose
that you have a process take off and start dumping lots of debug information to
your syslog daemon. If /var/log is part of the root partition, and if you don't
catch this in time, your / partition can fill up with log files. This can make for
some very interesting failures and errors which won't necessarily be all that easy
to track down until you realize that your disk is full.
But if /var has its own partition, then the worst that will happen is that you lose
some log info; your /, /tmp, and /usr partitions will continue to function
normally.
Or suppose that you are installing new software, most of which will go somewhere in
/usr. Again, if you screw up or if the software is larger than you expected, such
that you fill up /usr, it's only a big deal if you've also filled up other
partitions as well. If /usr is isolated, then you just get a 'device full' error,
which you can deal with.
The drawback to all of this is, of course, that you have to plan your partition
sizes carefully in order to avoid wasting too much space as your system lives out
its life. Only experience can teach you the right way to set up 'your' ideal
system, so start by taking some wild guesses, installing a system, and then
adjusting as needed. Trial-and-error like this lacks elegance (if only because of
the frequent re-installs or restores from backups as you start to get some
experience in), but I do believe that it pays off in the long run.
Your mileage will definitely vary, but for a general-purpose system, I like to
start off with something like this:
swap . . . twice your RAM, or 128 megs, whichever is smaller
/ . . . 50 - 80 megs
/var . . . 30 - 40 megs
/usr . . . no less than 400 megs, sometimes as much as 800 or even more if you are
installing lots of stuff
/home . . . whatever you have left
Naturally this assumes decent-size hard drives on a modern system; a minimal
install would look very different, and certain server configurations will also
change this (for example, I'm pretty sure that mail servers need more space in
/var).
Okay, enough blabbing from the sophomore. Direct any flames to me off the list. ;)
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