Wise disk parting.

John Summerfield debian at herakles.homelinux.org
Wed Nov 7 21:14:24 UTC 2007


Steve Lindemann wrote:
> Mark Haney wrote:
>> Lamar Owen wrote:
>>> On Wednesday 07 November 2007, Strong wrote:
>>>> I want to get the list's advice on disk partitioning.
>>> I have typically partitioned with four partitions:
>>> 200MB or so /boot
>>> swap equal to RAM size on late 2.6 kernels
>>> 8-10GB /
>>> remainder /home
>>>
>>> I've kept essentially the same /home since RHL 6.2 days.
>>
>>
>> FWIW, my swap file is only half the size of the RAM I have.  Even with
>> compiling things like KDE I've never come close to hit the swap limit.
>> Is the 'same size as RAM' option still really valid for desktop/laptop
>> users if they aren't just pushing the devil out of the system?
>>
>>
> 
> In days gone by the rule of thumb for *nix was swap should be 1/2 the 
> size of RAM.  Hadn't heard about that rule changing, but then I'm not on 
> the bleeding edge these days....  though on my servers with 16GB of RAM 
> it felt like a bit much setting swap to 8GB (but I did it anyway 8^)

Inversely wrong:-)

For as long as I've been using Linux (Slak 2.6 and RHL 3.0.3) the ROT 
has been twice RAM.

And a swap partition.

I reckon the ROT's a load of rot. If you have abundant RAM I see no 
reason at all for 2*abundant RAM.

A swap partition is inflexible. I prefer, if I need swap, to have a swap 
file. It's easier to remove or resize swap files. A swap partition's 
like a pawn move in chess: one can't (easily) undo it.



Until Strong knows better, he should use the partitioning defaults 
(except maybe for the swap partition). The defaults work well for most 
people, and one he's made the grade as a geek he might know better. 
Until then, he risks taking advice that doesn't suit his circumstances 
and not knowing it.

Heck, I reckon I'm geek class, but I still generally take a simple 
choice (moderated perhaps by the desire to mulitboot):
/boot Vendor's recommendation
/     The rest.

Oh, and ext3, but all the distros I'm likely to use do that now.




-- 

Cheers
John

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