[Gllug] To partition or not to partition

[Alain Williams]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 09:56:08PM +0100, Richard Jones wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 01:19:56PM +0100, - Tethys wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:
> > 
> > > A radical simplification of my above partitioning could be to just split data and programs, so 2 partitions:
> > > * /home (symlinks into here for: /tmp & /var)
> > > * / (everything else, ie : also /usr & /boot)
> > >
> > > What does the combined wisdom of this list think ?
> > 
> > Wouldn't work for me because I need /usr on a separate filesystem,
> > so it can be mounted readonly. Yes, I'm paranoid -- I like it that
> > way :-)
> > 
> > For me, I tend to have a /boot and then LVM for the rest of the
> > disk, in which I put /, /usr, /var, /tmp, /opt and /stuff (the
> > latter I use as a general scratch storage area[1] for things with
> > which I'm playing around at any given time).
> 
> Tet,
> 
> guess you'll enjoy (or more probably not) this thread:
> 
> http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2010-October/thread.html#144471

Hmmmm: The link to bug 626007 didn't work for me, but I deduce that it is that
/usr cannot be a separate mounted file system because there is stuff needed
from there before file systems are mounted. That to me is a bug, althrough
some thought it acceptable to avoid the bug by making /usr part of /.

A lot of the discussion seems to boil down to how easy it is to administer
a system with many separate file systems. The initial system installer doesn't
know what you are going to do with your system, eg how many extra packages, ...,
that you will install -- so it is much simpler to have one big file system
and avoid the problem of /usr or /opt (or whatever) going full.

I can see the argument for this with a desktop/home PC 'administered' by aunt Maude.
However for *my* systems and properly planned/administered servers the extra
resiliance/... gained through separate mount points is, IMHO, worth the
small amount of extra effort.

You could argue that aunt Maude's system is just as needy as protection (she
will trip over the power cable and pull it out -- one place where a separate
RFS can help; etc). The trouble is that how does the system automagially
cope with changes in disk use... the sudden increase in /tmp usage, is that
something wrong or is she just downloading lots of big picture of kittens ?
You certainly can't ask Maude - she would not understand the question.

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php
Past chairman of UKUUG: http://www.ukuug.org/
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