Partitioning Scheme

sniffles · 2008-01-23 08:31:31

Hello.

I'm planning to install Arch Linux on a laptop with an 80 GB HD. I do not like LVM and I'm not planning to use it, and my filesystem of choice is EXT3. On Debian and Gentoo I like to create the following partitions:

/ - 512 MB
/boot - 32 MB
/tmp - 512 MB
/usr - 3 GB
/var - 1 GB
/home - REST

+ SWAP (1 GB)

for security (and not only) reasons. However, every distribution has its own way of doing things and its own directories to hog. I'm just wondering what directories Arch "hogs". I'm used to having a rather empy /opt directory, but IIRC Arch puts quite a few programs in here? Alas, what sizes for the above partitions does Pacman want/need?

I don't want to put /usr to be of "7 GB" "just to be on the safe side" (in case I one day decide and install everything I can?!?). I'm quite the minimalist. I plan to use the box only for C/C++, Python/Ruby and x86 Assembly programming. I also plan to have a few network-related utilities installed. I usually run X.org with OpenBox and XTERM is usually the only window that appears. I don't even use graphical web browsers. I *do* enable ALSA support. Anyway, that should give you a fair idea of what kind of utilities are going to be installed on my system (i.e. light, mostly CLI).

What I'm asking is this: what are some recommended partition sizes? Should I make a sep. /opt partitions? Any *other* partitions I should make when using Arch?

If you find you can't answer those questions for me, I'd appreciate some "df" and "du -sh" outputs (in some relevant directories) along with possibily some information as to what you have installed on the box.

Thank you for your attention!

vacant · 2008-01-23 10:14:39

Here's what I'm using:

$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             10241088   6743264   3497824  66% /
none                    387640         0    387640   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda4             18342404  10359800   7050836  60% /mnt/share

10GB for everything including home directories. If I thought I'd ever need swap with 750MB RAM, I'd use a swap file.

The "share" is where I store pix, vids, mp3s for other users on the PC and network so we only need tiny home directories for private documents. I have separate disk and partitions for backups and other distros which I mount only when needed.

When storage is around 0.12 UKP per gigabyte, I just can't see the point of being minimalist when talking about the difference between 3GB and 7GB

byte · 2008-01-23 10:36:26

65M     /opt/google-earth
103M    /opt/java
776M    /opt/kde
38M     /opt/mozilla
341M    /opt/openoffice
30M     /opt/qt

Overall, /opt is deprecated. The Mozilla stuff in testing for example should already use /usr, QT4 is in /usr, and I'm quite sure that future KDE4 packages will live in /usr too.

Agent69 · 2008-01-23 12:36:35

Here is what I use, IIRC (I'm at work right now):

sda1    /boot   100MB
sda2    /       10GB
sda5    /var    3GB
sda6    /tmp    3GB
sda7    /home   130GB
sda8    SWAP    3GB

I have to admit to not being sure how much swap I should set up for, since I have 4GB of RAM and have never swapped out as far as I know. On older machines, I always set swap to double the amount of RAM but an 8GB swap partition seemed excessive.

dolby · 2008-01-23 16:51:49

if you plan on installing many packages such as kde,gnome,etc & run ABS 1gb for /var is way too little. since its also nice not to clear your cache that much in case you might have to downgrade i recommend at least 4-5gb if you can afford them

sniffles · 2008-01-23 18:06:43

Being minimalist doesn't mean putting 3 GB instead of 7 GB. That's just /smart/ partitioning. /home has much more chances of filling up those 4 GB (7 - 3) than /usr does.

Alas, Agent69: 3 GB for /tmp !?!? 3 GB OF SWAP !?!?!?!? Those seem *a bit* exaggerated. I understand you have a big hard drive and you don't really have to care but still.. why not do things properly?

dolby: I thought the OP made it relatively clear that I'd not be running KDE, GNOME, "etc".

Agent69 · 2008-01-23 18:58:48

If it were safe, I wouldn't even have a swap partition, but I've read that you can run into trouble if you don't.

Last edited by Agent69 (2008-01-23 18:59:01)

Misfit138 · 2008-01-23 19:08:26

Agent69 wrote:

If it were safe, I wouldn't even have a swap partition, but I've read that you can run into trouble if you don't.

If you ever plan on using suspend/hibernate, a swap partition at least the size of your RAM would be required.
That's at least one reason to have a swap partition.

mcmillan · 2008-01-24 05:31:23

I'd agree that 1gb for /var might be a bit small even if it's on a stripped down system. I have almost that much just in my package cache, though I probably have more things installed than you will. My /var/abs also is about 400 mb, so just between those two things I'm more than 1gb. Those are probably the biggest hogs in /var, but both are quirks for arch which is what you were asking about.

I have 1gb of swap and to fit my 1gb, mainly for the suspend to disk aspect that Misfit said. Other than that I doubt my swap partition really gets much use.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-01-23 08:31:31

Partitioning Scheme

#2 2008-01-23 10:14:39

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#3 2008-01-23 10:36:26

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#4 2008-01-23 12:36:35

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#5 2008-01-23 16:51:49

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#6 2008-01-23 18:06:43

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#7 2008-01-23 18:58:48

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#8 2008-01-23 19:08:26

Re: Partitioning Scheme

#9 2008-01-24 05:31:23

Re: Partitioning Scheme

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