general rules for partitioning

[Joel]

> > > 10%? Really for most people, wouldn't this be 90%? Especially with new
> > > gigantic hard drives? I can't see needing even 8GB for everything else on a
> > > desktop system.....
> 
> Given a wide variability in the size and number of hard drives attached,
> the size of the partitions given to the nongrowing portions of the
> system should probably be given in GB instead of percentages.
> Percentages should probably be given for things like /home, /tmp,
> and /var .
> 
> > Which explains the lack of recommendations. Everyone has their own plans.
> >
> > I'm exploring Fedora Core while using it as a workstation, so I have
> > lots of optional stuff loaded. As a result, I find 8GB for /usr is just
> > barely enough. I tend to install things that are not RPM, and I leave
> > source lying around sometimes, so I give /usr/local 4G or more.
> 
> That doesn't make the default, mostly one big lump, any better.
> That does make clear the need for custom partitioning.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying that the default should
use some other heuristic than putting it all in one partition? If so, I
disagree. This is not openbsd.

But even there the standard suggestion is if you don't have any good
ideas, one big partition will get you started, and you're going to be
re-partitioning pretty soon anyway.

One of the problems with "free" OSses is that you pay with it in your
time. You don't expect to get a cookbook solution working until you've
tried the recipe several times. (That's opposed to the other kind of
OSses, where you're supposed to pay big bucks for some teacher to cram a
cookbook that contains every possible variation on every possible recipe
into your head, and heaven help you if you think of a variation that
isn't in the cookbook. Woops, ranting. sorry.)

> > And LVM is very convenient.
> 
> Quite probably.
> My problem with it is that my first encounter
> was in the middle of an install.

Mine, too. As was my second encounter, but the second encounter was on
FC3, and I was struggling with six-booting a two-drive box. In the past,
Linux had used logical partitions, but with FC3, the installer directed
me to LVM, so I tried it, and it worked.

> BTW it's nice that some people trim.

Yeah, I'm long-winded. Personality problem, doesn't seem to go away.

--
Joel Rees   <rees at ddcom.co.jp>
digitcom, inc.   株式会社デジコム
Kobe, Japan   +81-78-672-8800
** <http://www.ddcom.co.jp> **