[plug] ghosting and partitions

[smclevie]

Hi all,

Thanks for the help regarding this issue.  I've copied my config directory 
/etc to another 'storage' drive and other directories ( /boot and /var/www )

I also then used a small excess hard drive to practice putting a complete 
installation with my partition requirements.

When everything was functional and installation issues finalised I scrubbed 
the original hard drive and started again.

My reasons for doing this was that my original partition structure meant 
that I had a real nightmare ahead of me so I thought it best to restart. ( 
Apart from the fact that I don't get joy from even simple adjustments to 
fstab!! )

SO!

Here are my results,

I now know that one must 'define' certain directories before others.  eg in 
the partition list one must have a '/var' directory before the '/var/mail' 
directory.
If this is not done, the directory (partition) is not recognised for some 
reason.  ( I think this is a bug myself ... )
I would prefer to put partitions wherever I want but...

I also now suggest an initial primary partition followed by logical 
partitions.  Reason being the ease of adjustments later ...

It is possible to have 4 primary partitions on IDE drives or 3 primaries 
and 63 logicals.  This is the absolute maximum.
(One would be quite silly to go anywhere near these extremes of 63 logicals !!)

For those who might be interested this is my partition list for a 40G drive 
used as a server.  Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Filesystem	Type			Size	Used	Use%	Mounted on

/dev/hda1	primary		ext3	370M	72M	21%	/
/dev/hda5	logical		ext3	19G	1G5	9%	/var
/dev/hda6	logical		ext3	9G2	1G8	21%	/usr
/dev/hda7	logical		ext3	462M	8M9	3%	/tmp
/dev/hda8	logical		ext3	2G3	34M	2%	/home
/dev/hda9	logical		ext3	1G9	33M	2%	/usr/local
/dev/hda10	logical		ext3	939M	18M	2%	/var/mail
/dev/hda11	logical		ext3	939M	17M	2%	/var/ftp
/dev/hda12	logical		ext3	1G9	44M	3%	/var/www
/dev/hda13	logical		swap	~670M			/swap

/dev/hdb1	primary		ext3	111G	4G7	5%	/storage

Although I have 512M RAM I leave a significant Swap partition at the end of 
the drive.

The system is pretty big in terms of number of applications running.  It is 
a freshly installed system without much data as yet.

Why all the partitions?  Control over hacks and blowouts at least.  There 
is a limit to how much I can get spammed! (Albeit rather a lot of spam!)

I reckon this is pretty sweet.

Comment and improvements appreciated (surely can't beat this can you??!!)

Cheers,

Steve.