Re: [gentoo-user] How many GB for / partition?

[Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name>]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 15:39:02 +0100, Alexander Skwar wrote:
> 
>> > But far more chance of running out of space on /usr, /var or /opt
>> > while
>> 
>> Not really. And even if so - who cares? Make the
>> fs larger, and you're set. Also, if those fs
>> run out of space, it's not a DoS.
> 
> No, but it means you have to stop what you are doing to re-organise and
> resize your partitions.

Well, okay, but how often does that happen? And it's
not as if resizing would be hard or time consuming.

> 
>> > one of the others has plenty free.
>> 
>> Well, no, since it's also bad advice to have one with
>> plenty free :)
> 
> Could you point me in the direction of the program that magically tells
> you how much space you'll need for each directory in a year's time :)

I can't. But that's just not needed. Make the filesystems
as large as they *now* need to be. If more space is required,
extending is a matter of a few seconds.

> 
>> > I prefer to have these three on the
>> > same partition for a desktop,
>> 
>> I don't. Everything on its own filesystem. I mean,
>> why not? Resizing, and especially extending, is
>> so very easy.
> 
> Extending is easy, but shrinking is not so easy or quick.

That's correct. If it is possible at all.

> If partition A
> runs out of space while partition B has plenty, 

Then you made B too large, which is the main cause of the problem.

> you have to shrink B's
> filesystem before you can add space to A. That's time consuming,
> especially if B uses XFS.

What's so special about XFS? The fact that there's no shrinker?

> Just because a directory existing in /, it doesn't have to be on a
> separate filesystem.

Of course not. It would be bad advice to put sbin, lib, bin
or especially etc on seperate filesystems. :)

For everything else, it makes sense to use seperate filesystems.

> Use whatever works for your needs,

Yes, of course.

> but be sensible,
> too many partitions

Well. If we're talking just about usr, var, home, tmp, Gentoo,
sources, then that's not "too many" in most cases.

> is almost as bad as too few, and creates extra work.

Well, it is not much extra work if it is extra work at all.
Actually I rather think, that it's less work - in the long
run

Alexander Skwar
-- 
	"Wrong," said Renner.
	"The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with
the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'"
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