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Date:      Fri, 1 May 1998 12:26:03 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu>, CyberPeasant <djv@bedford.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Writable /usr?
Message-ID:  <19980501122603.D26691@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980427190921.1001D-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu>; from Jason C. Wells on Mon, Apr 27, 1998 at 07:21:40PM -0700
References:  <199804280016.UAA03779@pollux.loco.net> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980427190921.1001D-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu>

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On Mon, 27 April 1998 at 19:21:40 -0700, Jason C. Wells wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, CyberPeasant wrote:
>
>> As a newcomer to FreeBSD but a greybeard in the unix world, can I
>> politely ask why FreeBSD seems intent on making /usr a writable
>> partition? 

You're probably on the wrong forum here.  -questions is for problems.
For philosophy, you could try -hackers.  I'm copying -questions as
well on this reply, mainly because of my comments on Jason's reply,
but please follow up to -hackers.

>> In another thread, someone reports that the user guide recommends
>> locating /tmp and /var on /usr.  I believe I've seen
>> recommendations to supply users' home directories in the /usr
>> partition, too.  (The default installation script sets you up
>> without a /home partition.) What's the rationale for this? Isn't
>> readonly /usr (and /, if possible) a Good Thing anymore?
>
> You may have to place /tmp or /var on user if you have a prexisting file
> system that starts running out of space. By default /var partition is
> mounted on /var and /tmp directory is mounted on /.

I think this is not so much the point.  I haven't seen anybody
recommend /tmp on /usr (and it's a problem if you need /tmp in
single-user mode).  I recommend /var on /usr to avoid fragmenting
disks, but there's nothing holy about it.

To CyberPeasant's comments on /home: I'd suggest that this is an
omission.

> As a side note, IRIX puts home directories in /usr/people by
> default.

This doesn't win it many friends.

Back to CP's questions (sorry this is so poorly structured): I don't
really see that ther is a requirement for having /usr a writeable file
system.  We've discussed a number of varieties in the past, including
not having a /usr file system (put it on the root file system), and
having an RO root and RW /var.  Do you have a particular reason to
want it RO?

Greg

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