Re: [tlug] Current practices for Linux partioning?

[Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@example.com>]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 14:40, Christian Horn <chorn@example.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 02:16:53PM -0700, Jonathan Byrne wrote:
>>
>> As I prepare to upgrade my Envy 15 from Win 7 to Linux, what your
>> thoughts around partitioning? Should I hold my nose and make a / big
>> enough to contain /usr, or should I Do Things The Way I've Always Done
>> Them, which is this partitioning scheme: [..]
>
For a modern linux-only laptop, stash everything in on, even use
/dev/sda (whole disk).
Iff you require that other OS, squeeze it a bit and put small /boot
and the rest as /

Assuming you'll use linux mainly, ntfs-3g mount the windoze (damn, I
said it!) and put files there. Eventually fiddle with software that
reads ext4 on windoze end, or even use cloud storage.

Backing up part of a filesystem (rsync -HavPS /home
wahtever:/wherever) is nothing different than backing up a whole
partition.
(more or less the only thing partitioning is good for is limiting some
bugs that fill disk with crap logs (as Edward mentioned)).

> For Debian upgrading to new major releases always worked for me, for
> all other distros I do not trust upgrade recipes.
>
> As a result my systems have 4 or 5 partitions of each 12GB.  Those
> carry own distros/major versions, independently.
> One of these carries the encrypted /home which gets mounted from the
> distros.
>
> To select which distro/version to boot I have one of the distros
> maintain the MBR, the others have grub installed in their partition
> and the MBR can start them using 'chainloader ..'.
>
> Ofcourse, this style is probably not useful to the default desktop
> user.  Yet nice to just install Fedora alphas in parallel to existing
> systems without much worry about breaking things.
>
I really don't get the distros/version/releases thing and having
"many" different things at the same time, unless you are testing
hardware performance or something (if it is software testing otherwise
use virtual machines).

<OT>
If you switch to Gentoo, you will stop bothering with releases and
upgrades; you'll have updates.
If you spend the time to learn how ALL things linux work, you can USE
flags to work around most things.
If you dare you can always be on the bleeding edge: something will
always be bleeding...
Shortly (months, years), you'll know how to fix all you bleeding and
even help other fellas with their bleeding...
And you'll have that unique blend of packages, your @system, your
@world; yours to love and hate (and `emerge -Datuv --newuse`); as a
bonus you are very easily identifiable as "Unknown Linux" in most
network scans; yet "Unique" for any tracking purpose...
If you get stuck in circular dependency often, but you can find your
way out, consider creating yet another Gentoo overlay - there is a
close to +0 chance that someone will (try to) copy your uniqueness
If you are still bored, create yet another overlay... good luck
convincing somebody to use two overlays from a single non-dev
</OT>

Cheers,
Kalin.
/Gentoo non-dev/