Starting off

[Guest]

Could some-one please post the philosohy of disk partitions ??? I have noticed some people like to use one large partition, where manufactures default to several different partitions. What are the advantages, and which way is felt to be best??

[Know_One]

General definition of directories goes like "/" is root, "/dev" is for device files, "/etc" are critical system files [networking and so on], "/sbin"&"/bin" for important utilities, "/tmp" for temporay files that are trashed on restarts, "/usr" for most standard programs, MAN pages and libraries, and the last really important one is "/var" which provides a home for spool directories, log files, accounting info and other stuff that changes or grows rapidly.
All files could easily get jambed into one or two really large directories, but think of /var as host specfic files, and /usr as program files, then figure out how to share files over a network and still maintain security easily. There are advantages to having more than 2 directories.

Does this sound correct, or lets get at the argument now PPL

[eccentric]

Well, I do believe for one that he or she was talking about partitions and not directories

Also, that is one damn old post... But anyways, I do believe the idea behind multiple partitions is that you have a better way of splitting the parts of your system up. However these days it isn't nearly as necessary I don't think. I do keep my /home on a separate partition, and then the rest of the system files are on another. This helps in the case of a reinstall or something in that I don't have to backup/restore the home directories at all as that partition stays untouched.

The only other advantage I can see of having multiple partitions is that different parts of the core system would be if it was spread out on different drives, therefore helping out in access speed.

But if your just going to be doing a basic home system install for your own use and thats it, just make it one big partition and save yourself the trouble