Re. http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-help/2003/02/06/0026.html

In addition to the other comments, I would add the following:

/var is a dumping-ground for *some* (very few) applications that store
large amounts of user-data.  In particular, TeX dumps its font bitmaps
there.  At one point, I did a check of my TeX font data in /var,
and it was over 50MB.  And, of course, /var/mail is where your mailboxes
go, so if you don't move mail somewhere else (or cause /var/mail to
be a mount-point or symlink), you can soak up disk space, there.

Some suggestions have been made to solve this.  I'd add:

 * Put everything on one big partition.

 * If TeX is your only problem, you *can* configure it to put
   its fonts in a non-default directory.

 * Put /var under /usr and symlink it.  (^&

 * On a PC where disk space is relatively cheap and vast, I'd make
   / at least 100MB (unless it's an old PC with a tiny disk and you
   can't relace the disk drive for some reason).

 * On the off-chance that you've got a huge mailbox in /var/mail,
   you might move that.

For reference, here's my "df -k" output:

Filesystem  1K-blocks     Used     Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/wd0a      274967    42953    218265    16%    /
/dev/wd0f      297447    29058    253516    10%    /var
/dev/wd0e    36795954  9389811  25566345    26%    /usr
kernfs              1        1         0   100%    /kern

...this is on a 40GB drive.  (Slightly long story, but it's the
smallest disk I could find to replace a 20GB drive that was
showing some hardware problems.)

You'll note that I tried putting /var on its own partition here.
I didn't know how much space it would need, since I don't know
when the next application will come along that thinks that
/var is its massive archival store.  Lots of wasted space, but
that's okay; the disk will never fill up anyway.


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  --rkr@olib.org