In message <4.2.0.58.20000120090300.00b01db0@pop.rahul.net>, you write:
> At 11:06 AM 1/20/00 -0500, George Sollish wrote:
>> On my office i386 box I run 1.4.1 with the default plux X partition
>> scheme, which puts /home and /var in / .  Not only does this
>> result in a lot being written to /, but Netscape caches rapidly eat into
>> the space.  FreeBSD 3.2 (at home) creates a separate /var and links /home
>> to /usr/home.  This appears to be a better scheme, both for space and for
>> maintaining a clean /. Is there a good reason not to do this in 1.4.1?
>
> I am in the habit of putting user home directories (/home) in their own 
> partition to prevent using up the space in / and it makes it easier 
> (conceptually) to back up frequently.  I also put /tmp in it's own 
> partition to prevent it from being a space hog and it *never* needs to be 
> backed up.  Both of these needs are different than the space and backup 
> needs of / or /usr so it make sense to me to put them in separate partitions.
>
> But, do I put /var in it's own partition?  I often forget to so take this 
> advice with a grain of salt. :-)

When I build boxes, I tend to break things up like this:

/
/tmp (memfs mount of swap, never more than 1/2 of it though, if the OS
      has memfs, a seperate partition otherwise)
/var
/usr
/home
/var/spool, if the system is going to handle mail or other stuff like that.

I like to keep the mail spool under /var/spool and symlink it if the os
expects it elsewhere, this allows me to keep mail and mqueue on the same
partition, if I choose.

This keeps / mostly static and small.  Depending on the OS, my /
partition/slice tends to be 32-64 megs.  This helps keep the system
bootable in case of a power failure or other bad reboot and keeps the
fsck time down for that slice.  Also, if you like, you can mount /
read-only and the system will continue to be usable, just that no one
can change their password. =)

/var tends to be full of log files and such, a fill-up of /var shouldn't
interupt other areas of the system.

/usr tends to be large, it includes the kernel source, /usr/local/*,
     /usr/pkg, etc.

/home, well, we know what /home is. =)

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson@bl.org