Partition sizes for small harddisk

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 03:41:53PM -0400, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi
> > > 
> > > I'm trying to install FreeBSD 4.10 on an older computer with a 852 MB hard 
> > > disk.
> > > According to the handbook, 250 MB should suffice for text mode only.
> > > However, both the "User" and (retried) "Minimal" distributions left me 
> > > with no space in /usr
> > > I used the default partitioning (entire disk) and said "No" to the ports 
> > > and linux compatibility prompts.
> > > 
> > > Assuming that the defaults are optimized for larger disks, how would I 
> > > best divide the available space?
> > 
> > With that little disk space, I would be inclined to make it all
> > just one root (/) partition - with a bit of swap.   You might not
> > even be able to have a swap as big as memory with no more disk than 
> > that, but try for a swap of memory size or at least 100 MB or so
> > and the rest in /. 
> > 
> > I think FreeBSD has grown since they made those claims of 250 MB
> > being enough for a minimum.   You might be able to cram it in, 
> > but would have little room for doing anything.   
> 
> That is realy a bad idee.
> 
> / is supposted to be small to limit the change that something
> irriversible happens to it during a crash
> /tmp can be mounted so that it gets a real power boost
> 
> There are many other reason why not to do this. I can't think of them
> this quickly.

We ain't talking a commercial grade server operation here.
With this small a disk, the more space you dead-end by consigning
it to a file system that isn't getting used the more you limit
what you can do -- in this case.   I would not do this if I had
lots of disk, but...

Actually, some of the heavy hitters out there say they have been
leaning toward all / disk partitioning + swap, of course.

////jerry

> 
> -- 
> Alex
> 
> Articles based on solutions that I use:
> http://www.kruijff.org/alex/FreeBSD/
>