Dear all,

I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single partition
or several? If several what would you suggest?
Sincerely,
Patrick

In comp.os.linux.misc Patrick Guio <patricg@fys.uio.no> wrote:
> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
> has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single partition
> or several? If several what would you suggest?

Depends whether you expect the device to fail or not. Think about what
you would like to happen when it does, in one of the many ways that it
is likely to fail.

(hint: a broken 80GB file system is not fun to mend, assuming you can,
and by the sound of it, you can't).

Personally, I would not make any partition containing any data over 4GB in
size, and I tend to go for 2GB.

Peter

Hello

Patrick Guio (<patricg@fys.uio.no>) wrote:

> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether
> anyone has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single
> partition or several? If several what would you suggest?

I wouldn't recommend using only one partition. Using several partitions
has some advantages:

Using partitions for /usr, /opt, /boot or /usr/local allows you to mount
these partitions read-only. This lowers the probability that the file
system gets damaged or you accidentially delete something important.

If you have only one partition, and the file system gets damaged, or
some part of the drive fails, maybe your complete system is gone. If
you have several partitions, you have a better chance that you can
still access the other partitions.

However, using several partitions means that you have to think about how
much space your system will need carefully, because repartitioning or
changing the partition sizes later is annoying and potentially
dangerous.

best regards
        Andreas Janssen

-- 
Andreas Janssen
andreas.janssen@bigfoot.com
PGP-Key-ID: 0xDC801674
Registered Linux User #267976

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 14:39:29 +0100, Patrick Guio wrote:

> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
> has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single partition
> or several? If several what would you suggest?

Several considerations.  The primary one is that you want to minimize the
destruction that would result from a bad thing happening.  If you have one
big partition, then if something very bad happens, you have nothing left. 
If you have several, then most very bad things will only affect one
partition.  

That's why swap is best kept on a separate partition, rather than in a
swap file.  Swap is written to often, and with a bad situation, such as a
memory leak, it may be spewed all over.  But with swap on its own isolated
partition, all it would do would be to hang the machine, not trash all
your data.

I prefer to keep /var, /tmp  and /etc on separate partitions, again
because /tmp gets a lot of writes, and /etc and /var have all the setup
particulars that I do not want to lose.  /usr and /usr/local are also
separate partitions, as is /home.  In terms of writing things, /home gets
the most, and has most of the data, so you want to isolate that from the
system files.  I have a number of other partitions, simply because disks
are so big these days that otherwise even these would be too damn big

Another consideration is less serious, but still valid.  You have to
periodically check each filesystem.  ext3 is nice about doing only one
partition at any one boot, but if that partition is a zillion gig in size
you'd have to wait a long time.

The only downside is that you do have to take care to choose partition
sizes to be large enough, but not excessive.  This is not such a big deal,
either.  Go a bit bigger than you think you'll need for the system
partitions, and you'll still have lots left over.  If you ever do run out,
then you can symlink one of the subdirectories of the full partition over
to another.

-- 

David L. Johnson

   __o   | Some people used to claim that, if enough monkeys sat in front of
 _`\(,_  | enough typewriters and typed long enough, eventually one of them 
(_)/ (_) | would reproduce  the collected works of Shakespeare.  The
           internet has proven this not to  be the case.  

"David L. Johnson" wrote:
> 
> I prefer to keep /var, /tmp  and /etc on separate partitions, again
> because /tmp gets a lot of writes, and /etc and /var have all the setup
> particulars that I do not want to lose.  

Question:  how do you keep /etc on a seperate partition?  A *lot* of
stuff needed at boot time is kept there.  /etc/fstab for instance.  How
does it know where to find /etc/fstab before /etc gets mounted?  What
about /etc/inittab?  And all the init scripts in /etc/init.d and
/etc/rc*.d which do the mounting of filesystems?

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]
On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 09:52:11 -0500, David L. Johnson staggered into the
Black Sun and said:
> On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 14:39:29 +0100, Patrick Guio wrote:
>> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether
>> anyone has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a
>> single partition or several? If several what would you suggest?
[snip]
> I prefer to keep /var, /tmp  and /etc on separate partitions

/var and /tmp I can see, but there's a rather important file called
/etc/inittab that /sbin/init must be able to read when only / is
mounted, before anything else gets mounted.  Of course, you could keep
your real /etc/inittab on / and have everything else in /etc , but when
you mount /etc, your real /etc/inittab file becomes inaccessible.
Using --bind, --rbind, and --move in the right way may avoid this, but
it seems like a lot of hassle for very limited gain.  A mangled inittab
will make your system unbootable normally, you'll have to use
"init=/bin/sh" and hope you can fix it.  /etc only contains ~7M of data
on my Gentoo systems, so I just let it reside on / .

> because /tmp gets a lot of writes, and /etc and /var have all the
> setup particulars that I do not want to lose.  /usr and /usr/local are
> also separate partitions, as is /home.

Yeah, you typically want /usr separate from /home .  I used to have a
separate /usr/local partition, but since I moved to Gentoo, I've found
that almost everything I need can be built and managed by the portage
system, so there's only 19M of stuff in /usr/local now and I just have a
/usr .

> I have a number of other partitions, simply because disks are so big
> these days that otherwise even these would be too damn big

That too.  I have a couple of 40G partitions mounted at /extra and
/extra2 that are used for data dumps (mp3s, movies, etc.)

> Another consideration is less serious, but still valid.  You have to
> periodically check each filesystem.  ext3 is nice about doing only one
> partition at any one boot, but if that partition is a zillion gig in
> size you'd have to wait a long time.

Journalling filesystems like ext3 and ReiserFS don't take long to fsck
at all in a case of "oops, the power went out".  If something more
serious happens (kernel bug, flaky hard disk) then it may take human
involvement (worse than a long fsck time by the annoyance factor) to fix
things anyway.

> The only downside is that you do have to take care to choose partition
> sizes to be large enough, but not excessive.  This is not such a big
> deal, either.  Go a bit bigger than you think you'll need for the
> system partitions, and you'll still have lots left over.

....and put any extra space in /home , since that's probably where you'll
end up storing your users' data if this is a "normal" workstation.
YMMV though.

-- 
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /    mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com     /                Hire me! 
-----------------------------/ http://crow202.dyndns.org/~mhgraham/resume

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 13:50:24 GMT, P.T. Breuer <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:

> In comp.os.linux.misc Patrick Guio <patricg@fys.uio.no> wrote:
>> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
>> has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single partition
>> or several? If several what would you suggest?
>
> Depends whether you expect the device to fail or not. Think about what
> you would like to happen when it does, in one of the many ways that it
> is likely to fail.
>
> (hint: a broken 80GB file system is not fun to mend, assuming you can,
> and by the sound of it, you can't).
>
> Personally, I would not make any partition containing any data over 4GB in
> size, and I tend to go for 2GB.

Interesting concept, but isn't managing 20-40 mount points
a huge hassle?

Personally I hate running out of space. I make the system
partitions about twice the recommended sizes and put all
of the remaining space into one partition. Then maintain
backups of data. I've never had a linux filesystem severely
fry itself unless it was the whole drive up and dying.

In comp.os.linux.setup Joe Beanfish <joebeanfish@nospam.duh> wrote:
> Personally I hate running out of space. I make the system

I like running out of space!  It means it's time to tidy up.  Oh goody!
Yumm ...  mass rm of useless things.

Peter

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 14:39:29 +0100, Patrick Guio wrote:

> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
> has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single partition
> or several? If several what would you suggest?
> Sincerely,
> Patrick

You want separate /, /home and swap partitions plus an extra partition
that's reserved for use as / when you upgrade your OS. You also might want
a separate /usr/local. If I were you I'd do the following

/ 8G
/nextos 8G
swap 2X your DRAM size
/home remainder of the disk.

After you have done you install move /usr/local to /home/usr/local and put
a link under /usr to /home/usr/local. 

If you do it this way your life will be much easier when it's time to do
an upgrade. When you upgrade you can do a clean install to the reserved
partition (always easier and more reliable than upgrading and existing
installation). If you have problems or aren't happy with the new release
you can switch back to the working version. When you do the next upgrade
you can use the original / partition, switching back and forth every time
you do an upgrade. If you put everything on a single partition you won't
be able to do this because you can't do a reformat without destroying
valuable data.

"P.T. Breuer" <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote in message
news:67eetb.9t2.ln@news.it.uc3m.es...
> In comp.os.linux.misc Patrick Guio <patricg@fys.uio.no> wrote:
> > I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
> > has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single
partition
> > or several? If several what would you suggest?
>
> Depends whether you expect the device to fail or not. Think about what
> you would like to happen when it does, in one of the many ways that it
> is likely to fail.
>
> (hint: a broken 80GB file system is not fun to mend, assuming you can,
> and by the sound of it, you can't).
>
> Personally, I would not make any partition containing any data over 4GB in
> size, and I tend to go for 2GB.
>
> Peter

Madness !

40 partitions on a hard drive.

Put this guy in your kill files.

In comp.os.linux.misc Leon. <noemail@noemail.noemail.com> wrote:

> "P.T. Breuer" <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote in message
> news:67eetb.9t2.ln@news.it.uc3m.es...
> > In comp.os.linux.misc Patrick Guio <patricg@fys.uio.no> wrote:
> > > I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
> > > has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single
> partition
> > > or several? If several what would you suggest?
> >
> > Depends whether you expect the device to fail or not. Think about what
> > you would like to happen when it does, in one of the many ways that it
> > is likely to fail.
> >
> > (hint: a broken 80GB file system is not fun to mend, assuming you can,
> > and by the sound of it, you can't).
> >
> > Personally, I would not make any partition containing any data over 4GB in
> > size, and I tend to go for 2GB.

> Madness !

> 40 partitions on a hard drive.

What's wrong with it?

Do you have a way of backing up a 80GB partition? 

But I didn't say 40 partitions.  I only partition space if I need it.  I
am quite happy not to use more of the disk than I need! If I need more
space (and by definition, that could only come about by me finding a
new application for that space), I'll use more of the disk.

> Put this guy in your kill files.

Peter

Patrick Guio wrote:
> I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether
> anyone has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a
> single partition or several? If several what would you suggest?

i don't think anyone has mentioned head travel ... not a concern these days
or just less of a concern?

maybe it ties into how you'd be filling (or *if* you'd be filling) that 80g
disk.  if for instance you only had 8g of OS and data, i don't think it
would make sense to space it out over wide slices.  why make the head fly
over a lot of empty disk, when the partitions (from a content standpoint)
aren't that large?

i think i'd try to set the basic partitions (/, /boot, swap) at some basic
level, add a /home big enough for current projects, and maybe throw all the
rest into one or two big partitions (/extra0, /extra1).  i'm not even sure
i'd hastle a /tmp these days.

/boot    whatever
swap     whatever
/        8g
/home    8g
/extra0  30g
/extra1  30g

if it was me, i'd only use the /extra partitions for a few things ... ISOs,
big audio or video files.

"General Schvantzkoph" <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.01.06.20.50.32.220735@yahoo.com...
> On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 14:39:29 +0100, Patrick Guio wrote:
>
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
> > has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single
partition
> > or several? If several what would you suggest?
> > Sincerely,
> > Patrick
>
> You want separate /, /home and swap partitions plus an extra partition
> that's reserved for use as / when you upgrade your OS. You also might want
> a separate /usr/local. If I were you I'd do the following
>
> / 8G
> /nextos 8G
> swap 2X your DRAM size
> /home remainder of the disk.
>
> After you have done you install move /usr/local to /home/usr/local and put
> a link under /usr to /home/usr/local.
>
> If you do it this way your life will be much easier when it's time to do
> an upgrade. When you upgrade you can do a clean install to the reserved
> partition (always easier and more reliable than upgrading and existing
> installation). If you have problems or aren't happy with the new release
> you can switch back to the working version.


> When you do the next upgrade
> you can use the original / partition, switching back and forth every time
> you do an upgrade.

Well a better scheme would be like this ...

Far better to just allocate a reasonably large single partition for linux.
eg 10 gigabytes, and then use a growing partition for 'data' . ie start it
of at 10 gigabytes, and grow it  as need be.

If the data drive hasnt consumed the last 10 gigabytes, then you could use
it as a test partition. If it is used up, then you need a new hard disk to
test upgrades.


and that really means that linux distribution is on one partition, and data
is on another.

The other guys have said 'but a database might get corrupted if a partition
filled up'. well go ahead and allocate a partition to any database you
consider valuable to go to that expensive over.

Since this question is from a newbie, lets assume he doesnt have a valuable
database to look after.

"Socks" <Socks@Socks.Invalid> wrote in message
news:nKJKb.1593$lE.1313385@news3.news.adelphia.net...
> Patrick Guio wrote:
> > I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether
> > anyone has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a
> > single partition or several? If several what would you suggest?
>
> i don't think anyone has mentioned head travel ... not a concern these
days
> or just less of a concern?
>
> maybe it ties into how you'd be filling (or *if* you'd be filling) that
80g
> disk.  if for instance you only had 8g of OS and data, i don't think it
> would make sense to space it out over wide slices.  why make the head fly
> over a lot of empty disk, when the partitions (from a content standpoint)
> aren't that large?
>
> i think i'd try to set the basic partitions (/, /boot, swap) at some basic
> level, add a /home big enough for current projects, and maybe throw all
the
> rest into one or two big partitions (/extra0, /extra1).  i'm not even sure
> i'd hastle a /tmp these days.
>
> /boot    whatever
> swap     whatever
> /        8g
> /home    8g
> /extra0  30g
> /extra1  30g
>
> if it was me, i'd only use the /extra partitions for a few things ...
ISOs,
> big audio or video files.


No, to minimise head travel, use one big partition.

If you create the /extra1 partition, then  access to /extra1 requires the
head travel out that far.

If you put everything on one partition, you minise head travel to as far as
the data extends.


Of course you dont put swap at one end of the drive and / at the other end.
that causes thrashing...

yeah a 10 or 20 gig partition for linux distribution to be on is enough.
All you people are still saying /home should have its own space.

e2fs reserves X % (2% by default ? ) for writing by root only. Users
processes cant write to that last bit. And what this means is that
effectively root has that X% all to itself on / , and users are   prevented
from filling up  the drive.

 Therefore having /home seperate is REDUNDANT and a WASTE OF SPACE.

Hello

Leon. (<noemail@noemail.noemail.com>) wrote:

> [...]
> yeah a 10 or 20 gig partition for linux distribution to be on is
> enough. All you people are still saying /home should have its own
> space.
> 
> e2fs reserves X % (2% by default ? ) for writing by root only. Users
> processes cant write to that last bit. And what this means is that
> effectively root has that X% all to itself on / , and users are  
> prevented from filling up  the drive.

If a user fills up the root file system to the limit of 98%, this will
also affect system services that run under their own user ID. Apart
from the fact that storing personal data apart from system data makes
recovery easier. If the system crashes, you can format and reinstall it
without loosing your personal data and vice versa.

best regards
        Andreas Janssen

-- 
Andreas Janssen
andreas.janssen@bigfoot.com
PGP-Key-ID: 0xDC801674
Registered Linux User #267976

In comp.os.linux.misc Leon. <noemail@noemail.noemail.com> wrote:
> No, to minimise head travel, use one big partition.

Nonsense. (and you can't control head travel - ypu have no idea of
physical layout of the disk, and the kernel reorders requests for you
anyway).

> If you create the /extra1 partition, then  access to /extra1 requires the
> head travel out that far.

No it doesn't.  The data is probably in the same place as always.  And
if you really think that partitions have precise physical placements on
disk, why don't you place the most frequently used data in a single
small partition in the middle of the disk, thus minimising "head
travel".

> If you put everything on one partition, you minise head travel to as far as
> the data extends.

I see - so travel to and from california got a lot shorter when
california joined the union?

No you don't.

> Of course you dont put swap at one end of the drive and / at the other end.
> that causes thrashing...

If you think so. Why don't you put swap in the middle of the drive
then? Or would you rather / were there? Or maybe /usr? Hey, HOW are you
going to control what you are going to put where?

> yeah a 10 or 20 gig partition for linux distribution to be on is enough.
> All you people are still saying /home should have its own space.

And /var, unless you like blowing your o/s to bits too when /var
disintegrates. /usr can be mounted readonly, thus saving you from
shrapnel when the disk does the normal bastardly thing under /var.

> e2fs reserves X % (2% by default ? ) for writing by root only. Users
> processes cant write to that last bit. And what this means is that
> effectively root has that X% all to itself on / , and users are   prevented
> from filling up  the drive.

No they are not - they can fill up 98% of the drive, which means that
in another 2% time root will fill up the rest as the logs grow. If the
users had not been able to fill up 98% of the drive, root would have
had say another 60% to go before filling it up with the natural log
growth during the day, and would have been saved by the bell at the log
rotation at midnight.

>  Therefore having /home seperate is REDUNDANT and a WASTE OF SPACE.

Phooieee. Anyone with logic as bad as yours should not attempt to
speak.


Peter

Leon. wrote:
> "Socks" <Socks@Socks.Invalid> wrote in message
> news:nKJKb.1593$lE.1313385@news3.news.adelphia.net...

>> i don't think anyone has mentioned head travel ... not a concern
>> these days or just less of a concern?
>>
>> maybe it ties into how you'd be filling (or *if* you'd be filling)
>> that 80g disk.  if for instance you only had 8g of OS and data, i
>> don't think it would make sense to space it out over wide slices.
>> why make the head fly over a lot of empty disk, when the partitions
>> (from a content standpoint) aren't that large?
>>
>> i think i'd try to set the basic partitions (/, /boot, swap) at some
>> basic level, add a /home big enough for current projects, and maybe
>> throw all the rest into one or two big partitions (/extra0,
>> /extra1).  i'm not even sure i'd hastle a /tmp these days.
>>
>> /boot    whatever
>> swap     whatever
>> /        8g
>> /home    8g
>> /extra0  30g
>> /extra1  30g
>>
>> if it was me, i'd only use the /extra partitions for a few things
>> ... ISOs, big audio or video files.
>
> No, to minimise head travel, use one big partition.

for a lot of people's usage it may not matter that much, but ...

as i said, that depends on whether you are going to fill up your 80g disk.
if you do, your head travel is going go up.  the fs allocation scheme and
the file creation order would determine how far you go for any file - but
with a full disk it is potential that simple things (like system boot)
could traverse the disk multiple times.

> If you create the /extra1 partition, then  access to /extra1 requires
> the head travel out that far.

as i said, i would plan on using those for large and rarely used files.
they also serve to keep large and rarely used files out of "/"

> If you put everything on one partition, you minise head travel to as
> far as the data extends.

"as far as data extends" is why i said "maybe it ties into how you'd be
filling (or *if* you'd be filling) that 80g disk" in my OP.

> Of course you dont put swap at one end of the drive and / at the
> other end. that causes thrashing...
>
> yeah a 10 or 20 gig partition for linux distribution to be on is
> enough. All you people are still saying /home should have its own
> space.

i've sometimes gone with /home in /, but if they are adjacent i don't see it
as a big travel hit.

> e2fs reserves X % (2% by default ? ) for writing by root only. Users
> processes cant write to that last bit. And what this means is that
> effectively root has that X% all to itself on / , and users are
> prevented from filling up  the drive.
>
>  Therefore having /home seperate is REDUNDANT and a WASTE OF SPACE.

it is only a "WASTE OF SPACE" if you need the space ... how do you see a
notebook user filling a 80g disk?

if /extra0, /extra1, anf even /home are mostly empty ther isn't much penalty
either way.

In article <67eetb.9t2.ln@news.it.uc3m.es>,
P.T. Breuer <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
[snip]
>Personally, I would not make any partition containing any data over 4GB in
>size, and I tend to go for 2GB.

Must make building DVD ISOs an entertaining task.

John
-- 
Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England
We had a woodhenge here once but it rotted.

In article <qbgftb.68f.ln@news.it.uc3m.es>,
P.T. Breuer <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
>In comp.os.linux.misc Leon. <noemail@noemail.noemail.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> Madness !
>
>> 40 partitions on a hard drive.
>
>What's wrong with it?
>
>Do you have a way of backing up a 80GB partition? 

Yes.  It's called a DLT drive.  Even if the partition is full of data
which doesn't compress well it'll tar very happily onto two cartridges.

Backing up my 250G drive is more boring.

John
-- 
Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England
We had a woodhenge here once but it rotted.

In article <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401061437340.19859@aurora.uio.no>,
Patrick Guio  <patricg@fys.uio.no> wrote:
-
-Dear all,
-
-I have just got a new laptop with 80 GBytes HD. I wonder whether anyone
-has any arguments or reasons whether I should use just a single partition
-or several? If several what would you suggest?

Several. My reasoning is simple: at the very minimum you want to decouple
the OS of the machine from the personality of the machine. So /home user
directories and /usr/local or /opt locally installed software and data
should be in separate partitions. That way when you upgrade the OS, all
the data remains.

I've upgraded my main Slackware box with a complete new install several times.
But the personality of the machine remains on the other partitions.

BAJ