[sclug] Partitioning schemes

[Alex Butcher]

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, Will Dickson wrote:

> The new installation is going to be a Suse 9 / W2K dual 
> boot: W2K for the small amount of windows-specific 
> development and testing I have to do, plus any games that 
> really don't want to run under linux even with WineX; SuSE 
> for everything else. However, I'm still considering the most 
> appropriate partitioning scheme.
> 
> My current (W2K) setup goes like this:
> C: W2K itself and nothing else, so that when I have to 
> reinstall I minimise the amount of stuff that gets junked
> D: Games
> E: Apps and a collection of Java libraries used for work
> F: Distribution archives of things downloaded from 'net.
> G: My stuff (except the bits which insist on going in my 
> Windows-provided "home" directory).
> 
> I am thinking that this will map as follows:
> 
> C: = /
> D: = /opt/[games] and / or /usr/[games] - I'm not sure 
> whether I'll always be able to choose
> E: = /opt (nearly all the apps I care about are written in 
> Java and will go where they're put)
> F: = /packages (non-standard I know, but hey)
> G: = /home/me

Here's my filesystem layout:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/Volume01/root     4031680   1453764   2373116  38% /
/dev/md0                 99470     55082     39252  59% /boot
/dev/md1                 99470      4127     90207   5% /boot-spare
/dev/Volume01/home     3048336   2545360    348148  88% /home
/dev/Volume00/opt      1032088    881024     98636  90% /opt
none                    257332         0    257332   0% /dev/shm
/dev/Volume01/scratch
                      17091652  15171028   1226272  93% /scratch
/dev/Volume00/tmp      1032088     35452    944208   4% /tmp
/dev/Volume00/usr      6128320   5504264    375020  94% /usr
/dev/Volume01/usrlocal
                       6379400   6107008     13200 100% /usr/local
/dev/Volume00/usrsrc   4128448   3608940    435624  90% /usr/src
/dev/Volume00/var      1032088     93892    885768  10% /var
/dev/Volume01/varlib    396672    174695    201497  47% /var/lib
/dev/Volume01/varspool
                       1007896    807524    149172  85% /var/spool
/dev/hde1              4087964   2174940   1913024  54% /dosc
/dev/hdg1              4087964   2121476   1966488  52% /dosd
/dev/hde7              8175980   6180892   1995088  76% /dose
/dev/hdg7              8175980   7618972    557008  94% /dosf

This is a system running RH8, plus booting to W98 for games and hardware
setup occasionally. Note that I'm using both RAID0 and RAID1 over the two
discs, /dev/hde and /dev/hdg. I've rather craftily got two 40G partitions
RAID1'd (mirrored) and two 15G partitions RAID0'd (striped). I run LVM on
top of them (giving /dev/Volume01 and /dev/Volume00, respectively) so that I
can dynamically re-allocate space between partitions on those volumes as
demand shifts. Important stuff (/home, /var/spool, ...) is on filesystems
contained within the RAID1 volume group, and less important stuff (/usr,
/tmp, ...) is on the RAID0 volume group. If a disc dies, I've got a system
rebuild to do, but at least my data should be safe. If I had more disc
space, I'd go solely with RAID1.

> Assuming that's correct, the question I'm pondering is what 
> to do about sizing /, /opt, and /usr. I have read various 
> arguments that you should have a small /, but most of these 
> don't seem relevant to my situation; OTOH /opt and /usr seem 
> likely to grow unpredictably (eg. my UT2003 installation is 
> nearly 4GB) so I definitely want them on the same partition. 
> Thus the simplest approach is to have a huge / and let them 
> get on with it.

Life's too short for statically-sized partitions. If you've only got a
single-user machine, don't want to use LVM, and don't mind doing a full
backup/restore during OS upgrades, then a large / is probably the next best
thing.

> Alternatively I could have a small /, a large "pool" 
> partition, and symlink /usr, /opt and maybe /tmp to 
> subdirectories of the pool partition. However, that's rather 
> unorthodox and I'm wondering if it might break apps which 
> can tell the difference and weren't expecting it.

If you're thinking in terms of a "pool" partition, you really want LVM.

> Anyone have any comments?

Yes, use LVM. ;-)

> TIA
> Will.

Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>