New user - small file server questions and quick GUI question

[Jerry McAllister]

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??

No, it doesn't.
In fact, technically you can put everything all in /  (root), except 
for swap and you can even create a file in / for that in root if you 
have the bad judgement to do it that way.

It is just a good idea to separate them if those filesystems are 
likely to grow a lot, such as when installing ports (/usr in /usr/ports 
and /usr/local) and when building a database (/var in /var/db) or 
something that spools a lot (/var in /var/spool).    

It provides a small amount of additional protection for the system.

> 
> 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??

You can put it where you like.  Just do your own links or make
your own mounts in /etc/fstab.


> >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 :-)

So, use 'vi' or install 'vim' from ports and us it.
Since 'vi' is always available, it becomes important to learn it
and then it is second nature to use it.   (actually, vi is not
available in single user mode if you do not have /usr mounted, but
I usually just put a copy in /bin and then it is always available)

////jerry    



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