Alex Bochannek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> And /home, which should be on a server anyway.

Yes, but that depends on your needs. You don't need to have it on a
server if you only have one computer.

> If you have a process that fills up your file system, for example, you
> have a better chance of surviving if it's just one local file system
> and not the whole local disk. Excessive logging in /var comes to
> mind. I also had issues with file system corruption before, where I
> was quite happy that only one file system blew up (/var in this case)
> and not the whole box. Yes, both of these examples happen to be /var,
> which you agree should be separate anyway.

Yes, I definitely agree. But when it comes to root and /usr, neither
of them fills up unless you install something, and then you'll
notice. Also, nothing is automatically written to them by the system
so it doesn't matter if they fill up.

> You will end up with more, but smaller save sets. Allows for faster
> (parallel) backups and restores and you can adjust the schedules
> individually. Backup products that work on a file level don't care,
> obviously. Also, see the above comment. Smaller likelihood of having
> to do complete system restores ;-)

Then why don't you just put, say, /lib and /share on separate
partitions?  Nothing prevents you from doing that and the namespace is
still kept. Since the root filesystem normally contains very little
data, your save sets will be more evenly distributed. On my system,
/usr/lib contains 302M data and /usr/share contains 421M. The root
partitions on my systems are normally not larger than 150M (the
partition size that is, not the size of the data).

> I don't use Debian, so I have no reason to doubt that this is true. I
> have seen plenty of systems though that expect writable space in all
> sorts of locations in the hierarchy.

Yup. Traditionally, binaries on Unix systems are even kept in /etc.

> I would agree with the statement that local file systems that can be
> mounted read-only and that have a predictable size, could use a single
> partition. Of course, if they are read-only, one should look at
> whether they could also be on a server.

I have never said anything about having one partition. I'm just saying
that I can't find a good reason to have /usr. Certainly, /tmp, /var
and /home should be on other partitions. And /bin, /sbin, /lib
etc. could also be on different partitions. But why have /usr? Why
separate some "important" binaries and the rest? Is there a real
reason?

Sorry if I'm taking the discussion too far... you don't have to reply
if I'm just bothering you ;)

/Pelle

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