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<H2><A NAME="SECTION005101000000000000000">Partitioning schemes</A></H2>
<P>
It is not easy to partition a disk in the best possible way.
Worse, there is no universally correct way to
do it; there are too many factors involved.
<P>
The traditional way is to have a (relatively) small root
filesystem, which contains <tt>/bin</tt><A NAME="1776"> </A>, <tt>/etc</tt><A NAME="1778"> </A>, <tt>/dev</tt><A NAME="1780"> </A>,
<tt>/lib</tt><A NAME="1782"> </A>, <tt>/tmp</tt><A NAME="1784"> </A>, and other stuff that is needed to get the
system up and running. This way, the root filesystem (in its
own partition or on its own disk) is all that is needed to bring
up the system. The reasoning is that if the root filesystem is
small and is not heavily used, it is less likely to become
corrupt when the system crashes, and you will therefore find it
easier to fix any problems caused by the crash. Then you create
separate partitions or use separate disks for the directory tree
below <tt>/usr</tt><A NAME="1786"> </A>, the users' home directories (often under
<tt>/home</tt><A NAME="1788"> </A>), and the swap space. Separating the home
directories (with the users' files) in their own partition makes
backups easier, since it is usually not necessary to backup
programs (which reside below <tt>/usr</tt><A NAME="1790"> </A>). In a networked
environment it is also possible to share <tt>/usr</tt><A NAME="1792"> </A> among several
machines (e.g., by using NFS), thereby reducing the total disk
space required by several tens or hundreds of megabytes times
the number of machines.
<P>
The problem with having many partitions is that it splits the
total amount of free disk space into many small pieces.
Nowadays, when disks and (hopefully) operating systems are
more reliable, many people prefer to have just one partition
that holds all their files. On the other hand, it can be less
painful to back up (and restore) a small partition.
<P>
For a small hard disk (assuming you don't do kernel
development), the best way to go is probably to have just one
partition. For large hard disks, it is probably
better to have a few large partitions, just in case
something does go wrong. (Note that `small' and `large' are
used in a relative sense here; your needs for disk space
decide what the threshold is.)
<P>
If you have several disks, you might wish to have the root
filesystem (including <tt>/usr</tt><A NAME="1794"> </A>) on one, and the users' home
directories on another.
<P>
It is a good idea to be prepared to experiment a bit with
different partitioning schemes (over time, not just while
first installing the system). This is a bit of work, since it
essentially requires you to install the system from scratch
several times, but it is the only way to be sure you do it right.
<P>
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<P><ADDRESS>
<I>Lars Wirzenius <BR>
Sat Nov 15 02:32:11 EET 1997</I>
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