New user - small file server questions and quick GUI question

[Frank Shute]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 06:37:25PM +0200, Kaya Saman wrote:
>
> [...]
> >
> >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
> >  
> 
> Ah so BSD is slightly different from Linux in the fact that it needs to 
> have /var and /usr filesystems separate??

You can have /var on the same slice but because it's a filesystem
that's constantly being read & written to it's usual to keep it
separate from your "static" partitions.

> 
> I guess it must be similar to the way Solaris handles things when UFS 
> based (not ZFS).....
> 
> The /home partition then is very similar to Solaris in that /export/home 
> is considered the user directory. Means BSD stores /home in /usr/home??

Again, it's just a common practice. Due to the PC BIOS, IIRC you're
restricted to 4 slices.

> 
> >  
> >
> >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.
> >  
> 
> OpenOffice or IIRC is for GUI based usage and not CLI. Since this will 
> be a simple server no GUI or work will be done on the machine itself in 
> terms of keyboard/mouse setup. Normally I work through SSH so will be 
> much easier once I have network connectivity up and running after 
> initial install :-)

OK. You may want to make /tmp a separate slice. You can always make it
a symlink into /usr at a latter date if you repurpose the machine.

You would find that FreeBSD works quite well as a workstation even
with that limited hardware.

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

BTW, you mentioned you were going to use packages. If I were you I'd
build from source. It's less problematic in my experience and since
FreeBSD multitasks so well it's not much of a pain. You've got plenty
of room for the ports tree.

Best of luck with your installation!

Regards,

-- 

 Frank

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