On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Niclas Hedhman wrote:
> Niclas Hedhman wrote:
>
> > I have a follow-up question...
> > Being utterly uncertain of the sizes of the different parts of my file system,
> > why should I partition it at all (I understand the Swap issue)??
> >
> > What is the down-side of having a single large partition? Please elaborate,
> > because I can't see it.
>
> Thanks a lot for the various inputs...
>
> Comments;
>
> a) fsck: N runs on X size takes longer than 1 run of N*X size ??
fsck on a 13 GB disk takes (much) more time than fsck on a 6.5 GB disk. I
thint on a home system, this is the main argument (except a separate
/boot, to help with the 1024 cylinder problem)
> b) seek times: I don't believe the HD would take any substantially longer time.
> The head movement is the most time consuming, and provided the access is equally
> distributed, I can't see the partition sizes affecting it.
Never measured/calculated it.
> c) / and disk overflow: Very valid point and I will evaluate the effect on my
> system.
Letting your disk fill up on a home system is stupid IMHO. I wouldn't
consider this very valid on a decently setup system, where you don't do
too much as root.
> d) /home directory full & movements: can be solved in other ways
None of which is as practical as separate partitions.
> e) /tmp security hole: I really don't understand this, but I acknowledge its
> existence.
>
> f) Multiple kernels: Ok, that's for you all folks who have time to mess around
> with it. I stick to a standard distribution, so I exclude myself from the chain
> of errors. I think we are at a point we the large majority of Linux users will
> not compile their own kernels. Which I think is good.
>
> Since I am more into danger of HD failures than Hacker risks, I have 3 disks on
> my system. One disk for System and RPMed programs, One disk for my work and
> programs that I need to compile myself, plus one disk for backup. Each of the
> disks only have a single partition.
>
> My point has been (especially when drive space was severely restricted and
> expensive), how would I know beforehand how my /usr, /var or /home will fill up?
> Blind guesses? Making a bad guess, and I will severly cripple the system. Having
> the single partition, I don't need to guess.
Educated blind guesses. You watch your first system, see how big each one
gets, and when you install your second system you can make some kind of
guess
Frank
>
> I will re-evaluate my setup.
>
> Thanks
> Niclas
>
>
>
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