Quoting David Laight (david@l8s.co.uk):
> > Ooops.  That PC is finds the kernel past the 8GB
> > line.  Sorry!
> 
> I have every intention of adding code to stop the root partition
> going above the CHS limit on i386 systems (and any other limit
> any MD code sets).

I forgot one: bad crash.  if /usr is mounted ro, we don't
have to worry about fsck.  If / is RW, but only 80MB, fsck
takes a moment.  And I don't worry about /lost+found filling
up with much of /usr.

> > Ooops, you've been backing up to /dev/rts0 for the last
> > 6 months.  /dev/ has a 20GB file in it that's overwritten
> > every night (I went into a client who's tapes worked
> > working for a recover and found that typo:  rst0 != trs0).
> 
> Yep, since /dev is almost always in /, a full / can easily
> be caused by a mistyped rst0.
> IMHO /dev shouldn't contain any files (someone move MAKEDEV ?)

I've moved it to /sbin/ on my system (see, it's a program that's
needed for system administration in single user ===> /sbin/.

> > Oh, something's gotten very big and taken up my 40GB file
> > system.  I wonder what?
> 
> That will always happen, it doesn't make much difference which fs
> is full - unless you need to protect the system for users.
> (give each user his own filesystem?)

No, it doesn't.  USERS may do that, but if /, /usr, & /var
are separate, when /home fills up I know where to look.  When
/usr gets huge, I know where to look *and* it's sometimes a
reason for concern.

But with monolithic /, I first may not notice 12 core files in /.
I may not notice that /usr is growing for reasons unknown.
With todays PC disks, 1% growth of all is a lot of disk, but
hard to notice.  Root in 85MB going from 50%->90% is quite
noticable.