From owner-freebsd-questions Sat May 2 18:48:53 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA24085 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sat, 2 May 1998 18:48:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from dt050n33.san.rr.com (@dt050n33.san.rr.com [204.210.31.51]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA24076 for ; Sat, 2 May 1998 18:48:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Studded@san.rr.com) Received: from san.rr.com (Studded@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dt050n33.san.rr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA08900; Sat, 2 May 1998 18:48:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Studded@san.rr.com) Message-ID: <354BCCFE.73983918@san.rr.com> Date: Sat, 02 May 1998 18:48:46 -0700 From: Studded Organization: Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.6-STABLE-0426 i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: djv@bedford.net CC: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Writable /usr? References: <199804280016.UAA03779@pollux.loco.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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? 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? A few people have given you good answers already, I'd like to throw in a few pennies of my own. The "default" installation options are designed to fit the needs of the average workstation person who's installing FreeBSD to give it a try. (Basically.) The oft-repeated recommendations of symlink'ing things to /usr are intended to help users who don't have a lot of security concerns get the most out of their disk space. Obviously, someone who has more system administration experience can twiddle those settings to suit their own needs. Personally I would like to see say three levels of "defaults;" "desktop," "server," and "big server" or something to that effect where the desktop settings are what we have now, the server settings give some reasonable defaults like making /var, /tmp and /home seperate partitions, and big server (Ok, YOU pick a better name :) sets up larger versions of the server stuff. You might even throw in "developer" which gives reasonable default sizes (and seperate partitions) for /usr/src and /usr/obj. Of course, the standard question applies, "where is the patch?" To which I reply that I'm still in the middle of my C class and arrays are giving me a fairly substantial headache. :) Someday though.... Doug (who's imagining the look on Jordan's face at the prospect of me hacking sysinstall... :) -- *** Chief Operations Officer, DALnet IRC network *** *** Proud designer and maintainer of the world's largest Internet *** Relay Chat server with 5,328 simultaneous connections. *** Try spider.dal.net on ports 6662-4 (Powered by FreeBSD) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message