New user - small file server questions and quick GUI question

[Frank Shute]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 05:19:54PM +0200, Kaya Saman wrote:
>
> 
> Many thanks guys for all the advice!!!! :-)
> 
> It is really appreciated!
> 
> Sorry haven't snipped more stuff into this mail but things are a bit 
> hectic here but what I will say is this; in a few hours once the BSD 8 
> DVD ISO comes in I will attempt an install and have a look at what's what.
> 
> The server will be constructed first and then I will look at the GUI 
> environment with Vbox.
> 
> I reckon the proposed disk usage spec from the FreeBSD hand book should 
> suffice though shouldn't it??

IMO the root slice is too small in the handbook. You should make it
2GB, since you've got the space.

> 
> With a larger HD I would normally do something like 15 - 25GB / (root) 
> partition and the rest for /home with round 1.5 - 3GB for swap.
> 
> Now my HD is round 40GB so I will do a minimal install and try to 
> maximize the /home slice! As result only services I will run are DNS, 
> NTP, SAMBA and NFS.

What is not unusual is to symlink /home e.g:

# ln -s /usr/home /home

ditto for /tmp.  i.e you remove all the stuff that uses up space from
the root partition.

So the only slices you need are /, /usr, /var and swap.

How I'd slice up the disk:

2GB for /
2GB for swap
2GB for /var
34GB for /usr

> 
> I suppose I could get away with something like 2GB for / which would 
> then contain /tmp, /etc, /root, /boot etc.....

Should be OK but /tmp symlinked to /usr/tmp as some things can really
fill up /tmp. For example, IIRC OpenOffice needs gigs of temp space
to build.

> 
> Only 2 machines will be connected, my uncles Win XP box and my 
> Linux/Solaris system.

Should work fine. Just remember to make your /home and /tmp symlinks
as soon as you first boot up.

Regards,

-- 

 Frank

 Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html