[plug] Debian - how many partitions?

[Anthony J. Breeds-Taurima]

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002, James Elliott wrote:

> As you would know or guess, I am a Linux newbie.  I am installing the latest
> version of Debian on a couple, or maybe three, computers in my small office.
> I have had past experience with differing distributions of Red Hat, where
> its installer will let you do anything from a partition-less installation
> (ie using a DOS partition) to multiple partitions for the "experienced
> user".
> 
> It has dawned on me as I read your replies that you can have a "main"
> partition (for want of a better adjective) and a swap partition, ie 2
> partitions in total, or you can have just about one separate partition for
> each of the root directories: usr,  var,  etc,  swap,  ...etc ... I think
> this is because under Linux you can mount any device or partition anywhere
> in the directory tree .... is that correct?
> 
> So, my main question is .... if you have a pretty big disk, what is better:
> 
> 1.  one or two big partitions with lots of directories & subdirectories?
> or
> 2.  one partition for each major part of the Linux tree?

Depends on use of the machine.  For workstations I feel that 20Mb /boot, XMb
for swap and then the rest in one large FS is fine.  For servers I certainly
do not take that approach.  I tend to have: /var, /usr, /usr/local/, /home,
/tmp, /boot + whatever application specifc stuff is required on servers.
ie /WWWCache/0  for squid, /var/lib/pgsql for PostGres etc etc.  

Of course you _should_ split things over multiple disks where ever possible

Yours Tony

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