Re: [Sheflug] Re: Partitioning

[Barrie Bremner <nospam [at] ecosse.net>]

Ian Wright wrote:
> 
> Oooo...I stand corrected and feeling very 'umble!

:-)

> 
> I think the thing which seemed to be a sticking point from my limited
> experience was the fact that, when you install a program from an .rpm (may
> be different with other methods but the ones I have compiled from source
> semmed the same) virtually everything gets put in /usr. Consequently, unlike
> windoze where apart from the sprinkling of .dlls into the windows directory
> on C\:, it doesn't matter a damn where the rest of the program lives, it
> appears that in linux the size of your main /usr partition governs the
> available program space on the machine. The impression I also get is that it
> is not easy to spread this /usr partition across more than one physical
> drive without a lot of clever fiddling in the kernel and things. When I set
> the machine up initially with two disk drives I did put the /usr/local on a
> different drive to the /usr partition but it just seemed like a waste of
> space as virtually nothing went in there. Perhaps I just haven't got into
> the mindset of keeping a tidy computer yet, I know I'm still confused as to
> what you should do with all the different partitions -like what is the
> difference between /usr/local and /home or between / and /root.

I think there is a Howto on this, probably the multi-disk-howto.


You will probably find that most programs installed after the
distribution, (plus program files not on the server, but for client
use?) will live under /usr/local.
/bin and /sbin contain all the main commands for running a system.
/usr contains most of the packages and secondary programs that make life
pleasant (i.e. GNOME and X and stuff). Note that there are several
subdirectories below /usr.
/home is where all the users personal files are stashed.
/root is basically /home/user for root.
/var and /temp store frequently changing information - mail/news/print
spools, logs, temp files etc.
/etc has configuration files.
/boot is used to store kernel images and work around some hardware or
software limitations (like booting pass a certain part of disk)


A number of these directories can be placed in different partitions, or
on different disks - problem is figuring out how big each partition/disk
should be...

Take a (not so) silly example... if /usr is getting too big, you could
mount those subdirectories on seperate disks - /usr/X11 on one disk,
/usr/local on another disk, /usr/src on other disk, /usr/share on
another disk and the main /usr directory on yet another disk.

 Previously, the original disk that /usr was on could have been full to
overflowing, but now, all the subdirectories have been moved onto other
disks, with room to grow, freeing space on the original /usr disk.
 End result? /usr as a directory with all it's subdirectories is still,
for example, 50Gb (!) but instead of it being crammed onto one 50Gb
drive, /usr is on on it's original 50Gb drive, /usr/local is on a 15Gb
drive, /usr/share on another 15Gb, and /usr/X11 on another, /usr/src/
another still...total 110Gb... the /usr drive might now have 40Gb free
and each subdirectory might have 5Gb extra...

 Erm, either I've drivelled on, or you get the idea of distributed file
systems, or I've tought you to suck eggs :-)


Baz.
--
Barrie J. Bremner

Email:     TheEnglishman [at] ecosse.net
           (PGP public key available at pgp.mit.edu)

URL:       http://www.geocities.com/thefatenglishman

Telephone: UK 01672 811246

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