Linux partitions

Craig White plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
10 Feb 2003 21:06:07 -0700


On Mon, 2003-02-10 at 20:53, Miles Beck wrote:
> 
> I am installing Debian linux on my machine and wanted to know the optimal
> disk usage for the various partitions.
> 
> I have about 33 gig of unpartionted space.
> 
> What size would be good for the following partitions?
> 
> /home - do I even need a home directory if this is a one user system?
> /var
> /tmp
> /root
> /boot - the boot partition I made 8 megabytes.
> /swap - the swap partition I made 512 megabytes.
> /usr
> 
> I installed this earlier and did not make the /usr partition big enough and
> then could not install all the packages.
-----
Depends upon the use but I would go with something like this...

path            server          user

/home           17 GB+           24 GB+
/var             8 GB            3 GB
/tmp             1 GB            1 GB
/                2 GB            2 GB
/boot          120 MB          120 MB
/swap          512 MB          512 MB
/usr             4 GB            5 GB

notes:
/home would take up all available after the others are partitioned
/var would be larger if you intend to have
   a. a large size web site
   b. a large ftp site
   c. handle large emails
   d. have any sizable SQL db's
/swap would probably be 2 x the size of the real amount of RAM (assuming
128MB - 768MB)

My experiences relate to where RedHat locates things, Debian might not
put web/ftp/sql files in /var tree. If web/ftp/sql stuff go into
/usr/local, I would probably have a separate partition for /usr/local.

Craig