/usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

[Lars Eighner]

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Daniel Staal wrote:

> --As of February 17, 2012 11:46:23 PM +0100, Polytropon is alleged to have 
> said:
>
>> Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
>> with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
>> default style for separated partitions include:
>>
>> 	/
>> 	swap
>> 	/tmp
>> 	/var
>> 	/usr
>> 	/home
>> 
>> In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
>> with intendedly limited sizes.
>> 
>> You can see that all user data is kept independently from
>> the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
>> a separate "home disk" if needed.
>
> --As for the rest, it is mine.
>
> I'm in agreement with you on that I like to have /home be a separate 
> partition, and not under /usr.

It seems to me that partition and mount point are being confused to a
degree.  There is no reason what is mounted at /usr/home cannot be a
separate partition as well as if it were mounted at root.  There are some
good reasons for the user directories (and perhaps some other data) to be on
a separate partition - mostly the reasons relate to ease of back up and
migration whether planned or emergency.  Arguments about where to mount that
partition are not so practical, being more in the philosophic and historical
realm. Pick one, recognize not everyone will be on the same page and put
appropriate links in.

> (Of course, my current zfs system has 40 
> partitions...)  Partly though I recognize that I like it because that's what 
> I'm used to, and how I learned to set it up originally.  (My first unix 
> experience was with OpenBSD, over 10 years ago now.)
>
> I've never seen anything listing the main reasons for having /home under /usr 
> though.  I figure there must be a decent reason why.  Would anyone care to 
> enlighten me?  What are the perceived advantages?  (Particularly if you then 
> make a symlink to /home.)

There may have been a historic reason, but now it is philosophical - trying
to keep the system and userland distinction clear.  But there are many flaws
in the attempted separation. /var for example is the default location for
many logs, both system and user, the spools (remember news?), and databases.
You really cannot drop /usr into a different system and have an operational
result.

(I put the home directories, the www directory, databases and spools all on
the same physical partition which I mount arbitrarily at /usr/local/data. It
isn't exactly plug-n-play, but in tests and emergencies is has proved
practical to drop the partition into several linices with a high level of
functionally  - depending on application versioning being close to in sync.)


-- 
Lars Eighner
http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266