From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Apr 30 19:56:34 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA11773 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 19:56:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA11743; Thu, 30 Apr 1998 19:56:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id MAA26878; Fri, 1 May 1998 12:26:03 +0930 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980501122603.D26691@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 12:26:03 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: "Jason C. Wells" , CyberPeasant Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, FreeBSD Hackers Subject: Re: Writable /usr? Reply-To: FreeBSD Hackers References: <199804280016.UAA03779@pollux.loco.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Jason C. Wells on Mon, Apr 27, 1998 at 07:21:40PM -0700 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message