9.0 install and journaling

[Manolis Kiagias]

On 10/12/2011 11:41 μμ, Da Rock wrote:
> On 12/11/11 02:09, Manolis Kiagias wrote:
>> On 10/12/2011 5:19 μμ, Warren Block wrote:
>>> On Sat, 10 Dec 2011, R Skinner wrote:
>>>
>>>> So I went to the handbook. I'm still a little confused though: can 
>>>> one still setup the usr and var (and so forth)? It said you 
>>>> possibly could, but it escaped me as to how.
>>>
>>> Use the bsdinstall partition editor to manually create the 
>>> partitions. I documented how to create an old-fashioned MBR layout 
>>> with bsdinstall on the forums a while back:
>>> http://forums.freebsd.org/showpost.php?p=149210&postcount=13
>>>
>>> The process would be similar for GPT, which is really the way to go 
>>> now.
>>>
>>
>> As Warren says, you can still create /usr and /var and all the other 
>> "legacy" partitions if you so wish - and you may even use the full 
>> journaling (gjournal) on them.
>> But the default for bsdinstall is to use gpart, install everything on 
>> a big / and create UFS2 partitions with the new soft-updates 
>> journaling system (on by default). Compared to gjournal, soft-updates 
>> journaling only journals metadata and not everything like gjournal 
>> does. This will definitely make it faster although probably less 
>> "safe" than gjournal. It should be good for most purposes though and 
>> needs no additional steps after install (unlike gjournal). Since it's 
>> the default, the decision to go for one big / seems ok after all. I 
>> believe this is more or less what Linux is doing with Ext3/Ext4 
>> filesystems (metadata journaling).
> GPT is cool - no problems there. The main thing I want to know is if I 
> need to run fsck every time the system dies unexpectedly (which is a 
> higher occurrence on a laptop)? GJournal helps in that it takes care 
> of that. The growing size of drives is another concern given the time 
> it takes to check a 500G disk (my smallest atm), although this is way 
> down on the list for the moment.

It does the fsck automatically and it seems to be  fast. As with other 
metadata journaled filesystems you will probably have to do a full check 
occasionally. Can't you give you any times atm, I need to dump 
/repartition/restore some of my systems to use su+j. Only tested on 
virtual machines.

>
> As for one big / partition- linux may be using it: and its their 
> biggest failing! I've had a system lockup due to lack of space. Never 
> a problem with bsd as logs will only fill up var, a user won't break 
> it with filling up usr, etc. And root always stays protected! Its 
> saved my life a number of times... I can quickly fill TB's of data in 
> no time, and if something goes bang the logs can be a silent killer 
> too. My 2c's anyway...
>

I am used to the separate partitions too, although I realize a single 
big / would be suitable for more than a few systems. It's nice we have a 
choice here.