Subject: Re: partitions
To: the boogeyman <boogeymn@psyber.com>
From: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@loki.stanford.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 01/31/1996 09:37:32
> so i need a Usr partion too?
> 
> I have so far a Root&User partition and Swap partition

It's a matter of taste. The reasons for having different partitions is
two-fold. Some partitions, like /var or /tmp or /home, you want
independent so as to keep them  independent from everything else (so
filling up one doesn't mean the whole machine's out of disk space.

Now the above's a matter of style. My home machine does NOT have
seperate /home, /tmp, and /var partitions. All our workstations
in lab do. You'll do fine w/o them seperate, especially if you are
the only user.

The other reason for seperate partitions is so that if you have a
power loss, only part of the disk gets sick. If part of your system is
not changing w/ time, if the power goes down, you won't get a (or MUCH
less of a ) corrupted file system. It's like on my MacOS side, all my
applications (which rarely change) are on one partition, and my data
files are on the other. If my machine crashes, I only need to sick Norton
on the data partition. :-)

> i am looking to run a system for me, and maybe a few other users via telnet. do i need this "Usr" partition too? the swap is 34 (2x my ram) and the root&user is like 47x something...should the Usr be the biggest?
> 

17 Meg? Cool! Though is 47x 47 Meg, or 47x17Meg (~800 Meg)? 47 is a bit
small; 100 to 150 Meg would make you happier. 800's a bit big. It will
work, but that'd be putting all your eggs in one basket.

It really depends upon what you want to do. I have one partiton with most
of the system in it (oh, this also makes the install easier - install
just to the root partition), and my play space for compiling seperate.
If you want to get into kernel compiling, you probably will need more
space.

Take care,

Bill