Slices

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2005-12-12 15:30, Jan Krediet <J.Krediet at planet.nl> wrote:
> At first: I'm a newbie when I am talking about FreeBSD or UNIX!

Welcome aboard :)

> For long time i had the wish to install BSD because I experienced that
> UNIX or related versions are more powerfull than OSses from Microsoft.
>
> So i decided a week ago, to download a FreeBSD vs.6 and to install it.
>
> After reading some pages of the handbook and the faq's I expericienced
> that making a slice for /var with the sice of 50mB ( i used 64mB) is
> not enough when during the installation i permitted th "Linux
> compatable".

At install time, some of the largest packages may overflow a /var
partition that is so small.  It's probably wise to use a larger /var
partition for other reasons too, as by default it stores a lot of data
on systems that use the Ports (to install thirdparty software), it
keeps the system log files, and the mail queue.

> I got the error message (something like): unable to write to
> /mount/var... it is full.
> After resizing this /var to 512mB no problems at all.
>
> Now I'm testing what real size is needed, because after using the
> command "du -h" i see that used space is only 1 mB but perhaps with
> using the command "df" i get the real information about the used
> space of slice /var.

The df(1) utility should report the real size.  For output that is
much easier for us humans to read, you can also use the -h option:

    $ df -h /var
    Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
    /dev/ad0s1d    965M     28M    860M     3%    /var

> What i like to know from you is: is here something going wrong or is
> the size, as written in the handbook (50mB) and the faq's, no longer
> current in your FreeBSD vs.6?

It's possible that the documentation lags a bit behind.  The section
of the Handbook that discusses disk space allocation is probably in
need of a few changes in this area.

> Another thing for your information: I'm almost 56 years and for me
> it is fun to learn.

Great to hear that.  A lot of people give up on learning new things
much much earlier.

> Sorry for so much words (and not always correctly "english")

As I said already, "welcome" :)