Different partitions for different mount points generally are used for three reasons:

1)  To better match the hardware of the system  (fast drives for programs and databases, slow drives for cold storage, that sort of thing)
2)  To ease in data recovery (boot on a separate partition lets you do kernel level and hardware level failures, so you can conveniently wipe it, reinstall your kernel, and your OS and personal data is in tact.  Root separate from home means that you can do full OS reinstalls without worrying about losing personal data)
3)  Because some parts of the OS aren't physically located on the box and need to be retrieved from a network share or separate computer.

So, just do what makes sense to you, your system, and your skill level.

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Todd Millecam <tyggna@gmail.com> wrote:
20GB is good for root, var, and usr--provided you're not doing much heavy development on it (if you need to install a number of databases and development frameworks, I find 3-5GB per DB/framework is a decent guideline).  I prefer seperate /boot partition that's 500MB myself.  The only real reason to split out var is if you're hosting a database and want to do partition-level backups and the only reason to split out usr is if you want to take advantage of limited SSD space.

If you're dead-set on splitting it out that way, then I'd go with about 5GB root, 10GB usr,  2GB + 4GBx(DBs and Dev frameworks) var.  Otherwise, give 20-30GB to root, 500MB to boot, 2-4 to swap, and the rest to home.

tmp is a bit trickier.  If you do a lot of sandboxing, or compiling packages and stuff, the most I could see it needing would be a little bit more than a DVD iso size for playing with distros--in any case 10GB for tmp is the most I could even imagine it using.  More likely, if you're not gonna be playing with VMs and building your own distro, 2GB is probably enough.

Whatever is left goes to home.

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 8:32 PM, Stephen M <smelheim85@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi All,

I need to reinstall a new OS on my laptop because Mint 17.1 keeps having trouble downloading packages sometimes.  Mostly it says that 'a template for "rebecca" could not be found.'  So the release is just having growing pains.

Onto my question though, I want to install something else but want to know about partitioning my drive.  I have not gotten into LVMs so I need to read up on those before trying.  I know that it depends but I would like some options.  I have a 250 GB drive, I am wanting to make a separate /, home, var, tmp, and usr directories. I am looking for a possible percentage of whats best works for a home computer more or less.

If someone doesn't mind giving me an insight that would be helpful.  Usually I have done 5-10GB for / and 2GB for swap and the rest for home.  I want to see what others have tried in the past that has worked for them.

Thank you in advance.

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