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From: Chris Davies on 12 Jun 2010 09:12
The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
> But one has to ask why..on a single user system,..you want separate
> partitions at all.

I run my (work) laptop on Debian. I have partitions for / (including
boot), /usr, /var, /home, and /tmp. I guess some of this is from my "old
school" server approach, but when I replace this laptop with another I
will still probably go for / (including usr), /boot, /var, /home/chris,
and /tmp. Why? Well, /boot needs its own to avoid complications booting
from LVM; /var and /tmp get a lot of IO so I'd like them on their own
filessystems; /home/chris is something I can consider mounting as an
encrypted filesystem. I might do something wild like mounting /tmp from
/var/tmp, but as it'll only save a GB or so it's not probably worth
trying to be over-clever.

One of my home (desktop) PCs also has multiple filesystems. In this case
it's because I differentiate between filesystems on RAID-1 mirrored disks
(such as / and /home) and filesystems that are not (such as /backup).

Both of these systems I've described are multiple login machines where
usually only a single user is logged on at a time.


> I've always found the prices of second guessing how much data will end
> up where, to be one I got wrong.

....which is why LVM can be a good idea.

For simplistic environments, you're probably right when you recommend
a single large partition, though.

Chris
From: unruh on 12 Jun 2010 12:45
On 2010-06-12, The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Mister B wrote:
>> I'm using RHEL 4.5, which has been loaded as one large root Logical
>> Volume.
>> I'd like to shrink the logical volume, then create some new logical
>> volumes.
>> How can I do that?
>>
>> I'm guessing I need to do it in single-user? Or did I need to boot
>> from CD etc?
>>
>> TIA
>> Mark
>
> copy it using a boot CD and/or a second drive to somewhere else, then
> reformat. and reinstall.
>
> But one has to ask why..on a single user system,..you want separate
> partitions at all.

Because if you ever want to reinstall with an updated system, a single
partion is a complete pain in the butt. Set aside 15G for /, /var and
/usr, (combined) and then the rest for whatever you want to call it (I
call it /local and have links from /home, /usr/local into that
directory.)
That way when you reinstall, you do not have to backup and then
completely reinstall all of the stuff you ( ratehr than the OS ) has put
on the disk. In fact in some ways having 2 / partitions so that you can
alternate between them for reinstalls is also good.

>
> I've always found the prices of second guessing how much data will end
> up where, to be one I got wrong.
>
>
From: The Natural Philosopher on 12 Jun 2010 14:42
unruh wrote:
> On 2010-06-12, The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Mister B wrote:
>>> I'm using RHEL 4.5, which has been loaded as one large root Logical
>>> Volume.
>>> I'd like to shrink the logical volume, then create some new logical
>>> volumes.
>>> How can I do that?
>>>
>>> I'm guessing I need to do it in single-user? Or did I need to boot
>>> from CD etc?
>>>
>>> TIA
>>> Mark
>> copy it using a boot CD and/or a second drive to somewhere else, then
>> reformat. and reinstall.
>>
>> But one has to ask why..on a single user system,..you want separate
>> partitions at all.
>
> Because if you ever want to reinstall with an updated system, a single
> partion is a complete pain in the butt.

doesn't matter how many partitions you have, you still have to work out
what info to preserve and what to wipe out.

And not a little of it will be in /etc /var ...as well as /home.


>Set aside 15G for /, /var and
> /usr, (combined) and then the rest for whatever you want to call it (I
> call it /local and have links from /home, /usr/local into that
> directory.)

and then watch ot all get blown away when something big loads in /opt..
google earth is a good example..


> That way when you reinstall, you do not have to backup and then
> completely reinstall all of the stuff you ( ratehr than the OS ) has put
> on the disk. In fact in some ways having 2 / partitions so that you can
> alternate between them for reinstalls is also good.
>

If you are that serious put it on a separate disk or separate computer.

Not a separate partition.
From: Keith Keller on 12 Jun 2010 16:22
On 2010-06-12, The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> doesn't matter how many partitions you have, you still have to work out
> what info to preserve and what to wipe out.
>
> And not a little of it will be in /etc /var ...as well as /home.

So? /var can also be a separate filesystem. /etc can not, but it's
easy to tarball up all of it.

> and then watch ot all get blown away when something big loads in /opt..
> google earth is a good example..

So? Make /opt a symlink to somewhere big (if it's not its own
filesystem already).

> If you are that serious put it on a separate disk or separate computer.
>
> Not a separate partition.

What's the difference? Other than having to do more reorganization if
you use a separate disk or computer.

The way I see it, it's easy to throw more disk space at a full
filesystem, whereas it's a big hassle to disentangle directories that
you'd now like to be on separate filesystems. (And LVM makes this even
easier.)

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet(a)wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
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From: unruh on 12 Jun 2010 21:14
On 2010-06-12, The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
> unruh wrote:
>> On 2010-06-12, The Natural Philosopher <tnp(a)invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Mister B wrote:
>>>> I'm using RHEL 4.5, which has been loaded as one large root Logical
>>>> Volume.
>>>> I'd like to shrink the logical volume, then create some new logical
>>>> volumes.
>>>> How can I do that?
>>>>
>>>> I'm guessing I need to do it in single-user? Or did I need to boot
>>>> from CD etc?
>>>>
>>>> TIA
>>>> Mark
>>> copy it using a boot CD and/or a second drive to somewhere else, then
>>> reformat. and reinstall.
>>>
>>> But one has to ask why..on a single user system,..you want separate
>>> partitions at all.
>>
>> Because if you ever want to reinstall with an updated system, a single
>> partion is a complete pain in the butt.
>
> doesn't matter how many partitions you have, you still have to work out
> what info to preserve and what to wipe out.
>
> And not a little of it will be in /etc /var ...as well as /home.
>
>
>>Set aside 15G for /, /var and
>> /usr, (combined) and then the rest for whatever you want to call it (I
>> call it /local and have links from /home, /usr/local into that
>> directory.)
>
> and then watch ot all get blown away when something big loads in /opt..
> google earth is a good example..

But it is neither big(75M), nor is it in /opt (at least on my system it is in
/usr/bin and /usr/lib)

>
>
>> That way when you reinstall, you do not have to backup and then
>> completely reinstall all of the stuff you ( ratehr than the OS ) has put
>> on the disk. In fact in some ways having 2 / partitions so that you can
>> alternate between them for reinstalls is also good.
>>
>
> If you are that serious put it on a separate disk or separate computer.
>
> Not a separate partition.

??? What do you have against sep partitions? If you want to put it on to
another computer or disk, go ahead, but a separate partition works as
well.

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