Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 18:45:56 -0600 From: "Mike Meyer" <mwm-dated-1008722756.638695@mired.org> To: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu>, Nick Rogness <nick@rogness.net> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.1.5 Installation - Disk Space Message-ID: <15385.19396.441544.472199@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10112131405410.6058-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10112131405410.6058-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0112131651120.65461-100000@cody.jharris.com> <15384.55429.649720.20833@guru.mired.org>
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Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> types: > On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, Mike Meyer wrote: > > Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> types: > > > If you have less than 600MB allowed for FreeBSD, just use swap and one > > > file system, /. > > My recommendation for new users is to create at most two file systems > > as well as swap: / and /home. Keep your private stuff on /home. That > > way, when you get a new release, you can do a "clean" install onto / > > without losing your data on /home. If you don't much space - where > > "much" depends on what you're planning on doing - having just one file > > system - / - is better. > > You can delete (and then reinstall) a dos-style partition, that is, > a slice. A hard drive in a pc can have four slices, one of which > can be an extended partition (can hold Windows or linux logical > partitions, but not FreeBSD). You can also newfs and then reinstall a BSD partition. > As for the idea that the only purposes of separate divisions of > a slice into partitions (swap always being its own partition, of course, > within the slice) other than / being administrative, the administrative > differences may be very important. You can back up a file system, e.g., > ad0s1f; that's the "unit" dump uses (I think I've got this right). Exactly. Backup strategy is one of the two most important such issues. The other one is doing system updates. It's nice to be able to newfs the system partitions without having to worry about your user data. > You can mount a file system read-write or read-only. I think more > and more there's an interest in mounting /usr read-only; but /var is > of little use read-only, as this is where (unless you change it) the > mail spool, printer spool, and log files live. Right. Wanting some part of the tree to be read-only is a good reason for creating a file system. Similarly, wanting to NFS export two parts of the tree with different sets of permissions is a good reason for creating another file system. > I guess in summary I'd say that for a system that doesn't have > specfic server purposes (like hosting shell accounts, for example) > I'd still go with a slice with /, swap, /var, and /user unless it > was a small slice; small to me right now is 600MB or less. Two years ago, I'd have agreed with you. Greg Lehey convinced me that such extra "pointless" partitions don't do anything but add yet more things that can run out of space. I have two basic system configurations that I use for almost everything (neglecting swap): Basic Server: / and /var. No user data is on the machine. / mounts read only, and the server data files live on /var so they can be updated. User machines: /, /usr, and /home. / is backed up, because it holds so much critical information. /usr isn't, becuase it can be duplicated from any of a number of places. /home is split off from / so that I can newfs / when upgrading the system. More complicated machines have more complicated setups, but they usually include things that aren't part of the standard tree. Nick Rogness <nick@rogness.net> types: > Also, many commands have options to "not traverse mount points" > which becomes almost priceless once you actually have to do > something with your machine. Many of them also have other ways to limit the tree traversal. > Disk space usage is also easier to view (with df) and scale with > multiple filesystems. Um - how does having more partitions make disk usage easier to view? I figure it's twice as hard to deal with four partitions as two. And even easier to deal with just one. For example, if I have a 100MB /usr that's 80% full, a 100MB /var that's 20% full, a 1G /usr that's 75%, it takes a bit of figuring to realize that I have 350MB free - and yet I can't install a 300MB package without rearranging things. > It's better and easier to have the functionality up front then it is > to add it later :-) Whether you use it or not. Yup. It's much better to have 1 1200MB file system so you can install that 300MB package in 350MB of free space without having to create room for it. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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