Recommended partition size for each filesystem?

vector · 01-05-2002, 12:14 AM

i would like to setup more then 1 partition on my linux box when i install it, and was wondering what you guys would recommend for the partition sizes for these various filesystems, I've got a 10gig HD, so i dont have to worry too much about space:

swap (512meg)
/ (256meg)
/tmp (128meg)
/var (256meg)
/usr (1024meg)
/usr/local (600meg)
/home (2048meg)
/scr0 (?)

and any other partitions you can recommend? the sizes in () are what i've found just searchin websites. are they good? or bad.

Vector

taz.devil · 01-05-2002, 01:48 AM

How much of the 10G's do you have to use? You really don't NEED that many partitions, but you can. The swap could be lower depending on how much RAM you have. This is MY opinion so of course it's not law (it should be) LOL!!!

Assuming you can use the whole 10G's I would do this:

/ = 9,750MB
/swap = 250MB

There you have it...This is just how I like to have mine, other ideas may work also. It's your preference.

vector · 01-05-2002, 01:50 AM

i can use the whoel 10gig, its dedicated for linux. but i would prefer more partitions rather then just / and swap

dorward · 01-05-2002, 01:59 AM

Putting everything (except swap) in one big partition is certainly a bad idea.

At the very least I would put /home on a different partition so that is can survive the rest of the system being blown away.

Having /var is quite a good idea if you are running a newserver or doing a lot of logging.

My layout is

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6             3.1G  1.5G  1.4G  51% /
/dev/hda5              15M   14M  658k  96% /boot
/dev/hda9             8.5G  6.2G  2.2G  73% /home
/dev/hdd7             9.3G  8.0G  1.3G  86% /media
/dev/hdd5             9.3G  7.1G  2.2G  76% /media/video
/dev/hdd3             9.3G  1.8G  7.5G  20% /mnt/iso-images
/dev/hda8              11G  6.0G  5.1G  54% /usr

... although I doubt its as efficient as it could be.

DMR · 01-05-2002, 11:58 PM

If you are using separate partitions for /usr, /usr/local, /var, etc., neither / nor /home need to be too large. Also, if you have 265M of RAM or more, a swap of 128M is more than enough for a normal desktop box. Here's how I've split my 10G:

Code:

Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6               505605     48566    430935  10% /
/dev/hda5                38827      3120     33703   8% /boot
/dev/hda7              3020140     80376   2786348   3% /home
/dev/hda10              505605       858    478643   0% /tmp
/dev/hda8              5036284   1700092   3080360  36% /usr
/dev/hda9               505605     35490    444011   7% /var

/usr and its subdirectories can fill up with programs pretty quickly, so it's a good idea to give it a lot of breathing room (as you can see, my 5G /usr is already 36% full). /usr/local can also fill up, depending on your usage, so you might want to give that decent space too. Your /var and /tmp sizes are probably fine. My /home is probably much too large for my needs, but what the hey, I had the space.

taz.devil · 01-06-2002, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dorward
Putting everything (except swap) in one big partition is certainly a bad idea.

Actually it's just as safe as any other way of setting up an fs tree with 2, 3, or more partitions. It is beneficial perhaps in some cases to make /home and some others seperate, but i've only heard neutral or good things about one root part. and the swap. But it's something i'll look into of course some more. I won't leave my foot in my mouth too long if i'm wrong.

DavidPhillips · 01-06-2002, 02:50 PM

If it's Redhat make a /boot partition big enough for the kernels you will have, It will complain about less then 20 MB but you should not ever need more than that.

/boot should be the first thing on the drive physically