[ On Thursday, April 13, 2000 at 08:22:37 (+1000), Robert Elz wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: /etc/rc.d/ runs slowsly 
>
>     From:        woods@weird.com (Greg A. Woods)
>   | 
>   | On an Intel x86 box it's still only 220MB,
>   | even with X11 and the compilers installed.
> 
> But obviously not with /usr/pkg sharing that space.   In general I prefer
> to have all of that on the same filesystem - that is, I'd rather that /usr
> and /usr/pkg share the same partition than / and /usr (once installed and
> working, I don't change the packages much - but without bash and ssh I
> am lost...)   A CD size (650MB) is just about right for a /usr for me.

You've really lost me there.  If I'm keeping a /usr/pkg then I want my
system files "together" and all of the add-on stuff elsewhere.  I.e. my
/usr/pkg is a separate filesystem.

(Of course on production systems I don't even bother with that -- I just
install the OS and all packages into one filesystem with packages
installed directly in /usr.  A production system should be duplicated or
upgraded or replaced by doing the same install over again with a pkg_add
of the same manifest of packages as was installed previously, and then a
restore of the user data or whatever.  When you can do a *complete*
install from a CD-ROM in less time than it takes to pour a cup of coffee
and take a first sip that's the fastest and most effective method of
system recovery possible.)

>   | The files that
>   | are mutable on the root filesystem are easily backed up on a floppy,
> 
> It isn't an issue of backups - backups are needed anyway.   It is an issue
> of how long it takes to get a workable system back running again (even
> if a little slow and crippled) so it can do what it is intended to do,
> which isn't sitting around in filesystem recovery mode...

For a server in the server room the floppy's always in the drive (or one
of the drives) and is only used for an emergency copy of /etc (swapped
with a fresh one every month or so for reliability's sake of course)....

> No, that doesn't help at all.   I threaten myself with all kinds of
> dire consequences, all the time, and I somehow always know I'm bluffing!

I can't help you there!  ;-)

> If the space is available, sitting there, and not being actively used
> (mounted or not  is irrelevant) there will come a time when a more urgent
> immediate need simply has overriding importance, and the backup gets
> blown away.   The only thing that saves the root backups I keep (and I
> don't just keep one, there will typically be 3 or 4) is that they're not
> big enough (usually even combined) to be useful for anything much at all.

I'd be annoyed at the complaints from the automatic mirroring script
so I'd eventually be pestered into putting the partition back to use as
the /altroot space.

Of course I'm lucky enough these days that I have an extra $200 or so to
spend every time I need more disk space and I can get at least a couple
of gigabytes for that now so even a 500MB partition is basically useless
to me (except maybe for swap -- ECC RAM prices are still higher than I
like to pay ;-).  My backup tape is big enough to accomodate over 2GB
too so I like my data partitions to be as big as possible.

> I haven't heard anyone say that.   I have heard people say that NetBSD should
> not change the installation to cause that to be done, but that's a different
> issue entirely.   Anyone is free to set up their filesystem layouts in any
> way that suits them - you can take all your drives, combine them with ccd,
> make a single huge filesystem out of that, and just have ccd0a (with swapping
> to a file in there) if you want to.   But that isn't likely to ever be
> the way it presents itself out of the box.  Nor is combined / and /usr
> (I hope ... and as was pointed out in another thread, I speak only for 
> myself..)   [Aside: I'm also not claiming that ccd as it exists allows you
> to have root on a ccd partition, it most likely doesn't, I have no idea.]

The only good thing about not putting /usr on the root filesystem in a
default install is that it keeps the maintainer's on their toes and
hopefully ensures that for the very few people who *really* need to have
a separate /usr filesystem can be assured that it will continue to work
without requiring extra work and fixes.

If I were designing a new system I'd put the kernel load binary in /etc,
and of course I'd eliminate /usr and have just one simple and consistent
and reasonably flat hierarchy.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
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