The strangeness called `sbin'

[Warner Losh]

On Nov 14, 2011, at 3:42 AM, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk wrote:
> Is it not possible to use a symbolic link from /usr/home to /home and put
> /home into a separate partition or drive ?
> 
> Mandriva Linux ( and other Linux distributions , mostly ) is using this
> separate partition and it is possible to completely install ( not upgrade )
> a new version without losing /home by only specifying to mount the existing
> /home during new installation . Even it is asking whether /var will be
> re-installed or not .
> 
> In FreeBSD , such a new ( default ) version installation from released
> *.iso CD/DVD is not possible without losing existing /usr/home .

I haven't created a FreeBSD system that has users in /usr/home since 1998 or so.  It is about the stupidest place to put user directories, since it keeps you from mounting things read-only, mixes user data with critical system data, etc.  I've always created a /machine-name partition for the users to live in.  This also lets me mount dune:/dune from harmony on /dune and harmony:/harmony on /harmony on dune so that any absolute paths that sneak in are preserved on the other machine....  Although to be honest lately I've tended to have one big file server machine and not even create a user's partition on slave machines.  Still, nothing in /usr/home there either :)

Warner