Date:        Wed, 12 Apr 2000 16:52:32 -0400 (EDT)
    From:        woods@weird.com (Greg A. Woods)
    Message-ID:  <20000412205232.D1033DD@proven.weird.com>

  | 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.

  | 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...

  | That's easy to solve:  always mount your /altroot* partitions read-only
  | (except of course during the time you update them).  If that's not quite
  | enough then put a big comment in /etc/fstab, as well as in
  | /altroot/README.FIRST, to document what's up and to sufficiently
  | threaten any would-be abusers of such backups.

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!
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.

  | What I'm *REALLY* tired of are those who say that it must not be done!  :-)

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.]

kre