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On Monday 15 November 2004 2:38 am, Keith Abraham wrote:
I'm going to attempt a Knoppix/Debian install during the week on a machine with a new hard drive. (GNU/Linux only.) Would anyone like to advise me on the merits of installing across multiple partitions and which parts of the system should be on these partitions.
1. Multiple partitions make upgrading easier with other distributions: Putting /home on a separate partition means you can blitz / if you want to upgrade. However, for Debian, that's not necessary - every upgrade, including kernels, can be managed without ever re-installing the base system. That install CDR is a use-once item. 2. Security. If your system is internet-visible, there is some merit in separating user space areas from system areas across a separate partition. This can (I'm told) make it slightly harder for some attacks to get out of relatively harmless areas. Others here will confirm whether this is still true or urban myth. 3. If partitions already exist, why not use them? GNU/Linux really doesn't care about partitions - you can mount them however you like and put the / directory on whichever one you like. You'll need a partition for swap space anyway. 4. Also on security, if you are really keen, you can mount certain partitions as read-only, e.g. /boot. It means rebooting with options if you want to install a new kernel and is more useful for servers or other boxes that aren't fiddled with a lot. My /etc/fstab (snippet) /dev/hda5 / ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 1 /dev/hdb10 none swap sw 0 0 /dev/hdb1 /mnt/mdk91 ext2 user,noauto 0 0 /dev/hdb5 /opt ext2 defaults 0 2 /dev/hdb7 /var ext2 defaults 0 2 /dev/hdb8 /usr/share ext2 defaults 0 2 /dev/hdb9 /home ext2 defaults 0 2 hdb is faster which is why I use hda for only one current directory. I don't use ext3 because I haven't got round to it - I have used it on other machines. df -h output /dev/hda5 4.7G 2.1G 2.4G 47% / /dev/hdb5 7.5G 1.8G 5.3G 26% /opt /dev/hdb7 6.9G 896M 5.7G 14% /var /dev/hdb8 6.8G 1.1G 5.3G 18% /usr/share /dev/hdb9 20G 3.3G 16G 18% /home
Also which file systems are best for each part of the system.
Personally: I wouldn't recommend a journalled filesystem (like ext3 or Reiser) for any partition that has a high write requirement, like a database. Journalling is fine for user space. I'd also say that journalling /usr/share is a waste of time, as might be the case with other system directories, although /etc/ could be useful it is probably just as easy to backup relevant config files elsewhere. You would rarely need the entire /etc/ space. More usefully, (especially with Debian), make use of EVERY opportunity to use customised config files in /home/user rather than edit config files in /etc/. When you apt-get upgrade, edited config files that exist within the main package will prevent that package being upgraded automatically (e.g. using cron-apt) and will wait for user intervention. When you use apt-get upgrade manually, the prompts are easy - when you automate it, apt will hold back any package (or dependency) that requires user intervention. This has (in the past) left me well behind other Debian boxes with big updates like KDE releases. A minor point but worth avoiding as you are planning this in advance. Read the man page and look for a userspace config file before editing the file in /etc/. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.codehelp.co.uk/ http://www.dclug.org.uk/ http://www.isbn.org.uk/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/ http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3
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