#### "The Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

# The Answer Guy

#### By James T. Dennis, linux-questions-only@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

### Disk Partitioning: Review

From John L Capell on Thu, 07 Jan 1999

After pouring over the various resources on the best way to partition my system for RedHat Linux 5.2, I think I've come up with the following: (comments please, before I commit)

    >    Mount Point     Part. #         Size (Megs)
    >    ==================================================
    >    /               hda1            350

> I usually use one third that.

    >    /usr            hda5            2048
    >    /home           hda6            1536

> I'd make this bigger. On a personal workstation I make /home a symlink to /usr/local/home and /opt one that points to /usr/local/opt ... then I combine those into one larger fs. Thus all my "local" changes and "my" files end up under /usr/local Obviously that's just a matter of personal taste.

    >    /usr/local      hda7            1024
    >    /var            hda8            300
    >    /tmp            hda9            300

> I also make this somewhat smaller.

    >    /usr/src        hda10           300

> I make this a symlink to /usr/local/src.

    >    <swap>          hda11           127

> This is fine. I usually make it the second partition.

> Ideally this would be located in the center of the drive's platter --- reducing the average seek time to it. However, that's hackish and probably not worth the effort. (If your actually swapping -- add more RAM).

While I realize that I may have over-allocated space for programs,

leaving only (only!) 1.5Gb for users, I figure I could always add more space for users with a second hard drive if I needed to.

> As you see its mostly a matter of requirements analysis --- which classically consists of three considerations: requirements, constraints and preferences. Given the size of the average hard drive sold today (4 to 6 Gb) we have lots of room (and are thus not overly constrained) and the fact that we an use symlinks for most FHS specified directories (/home, `/opt`, `/usr/src`, etc --- just don't do that with `/tmp`, `/dev`, `/etc/`, `/sbin` etc). --- it is mostly a matter of preference.

The resources I've used are:
(1) The RH 5.2 Installation Manual
(2) The Linux Documentation Project (http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/)
(3) The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
(http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.0/fhs-toc.html)

> Good work!

Where (if anywhere) am I straying from efficient disk usage? Thanks!

> I think you're devoting a tad too much for `/`, `/tmp` and could consolidate some of your filesystems.

> If you have reasons for keeping `/opt`, `/home`, and `/usr/local` separate then do so by all means. However, if you don't --- just combine them into one larger fs for maximum flexibility. If you're concerned about 'fsck' time (which grows much longer for larger fs' then I can understand splitting them). However, Linux systems are generally so stable that the fsck time on a workstation is not a major consideration (periodic reboots with forced fsck runs can lessen the chance that this will be required at inopportune times).

##### Copyright © 1999, James T. Dennis
Published in The Linux Gazette Issue 37 February 1999

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