Disk partitioning and swap

[gaf at mediaone.net (Jerry Feldman)]

I disagree with this:
/sbin and /usr/sbin are intended for static binaries. Before NFS, /usr was 
normally a mounted file system. Today, many installations export the /usr 
and /usr/local file systems. Normally, the /var file system is local to the 
system for the reasons you pointed out. In old Unix systems, before /var 
came along there was /usr/spool, /usr/tmp. Some utilities were hard coded 
to use /usr/spool and /usr/tmp. That is why these are normally symbolicly 
linked to their /var counterparts. Some utilities are hard coded to use /tmp. 
Some people like to set up /tmp as a symlink to /var/tmp. This is 
dangerous because it make /tmp unavailable for single user mode unless 
the /var file system is physically the same file system as root. 

My whole point in the discussion, however, was to look at things in the 
context of a novice home user who might be moving over from Windows. 


On 3 Apr 99, at 22:32, Mike Bilow <mikebw at bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net> wrote:

> 
> 
> Jerry Feldman {75562} wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:
> 
>  JF{> The /var file system is constandly changing. It normally 
>  JF{> contains /var/tmp /var/spool, neither of which need to be 
>  JF{> preserved for any length of time.
> 
> The /var tree is so named because it varies on each machine, not because
> it changes frequently.  That is, it is common in many installations to
> have /usr mounted from some remote source using NFS.  This is also why
> /bin and /sbin are different from /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, since /usr is
> not accessible until the network is up and may go inaccessible in the
> event of network errors. Obviously, things such as /var/lock would result
> in disastrous consequences if they could be shared among machines.  On
> most systems, /usr/tmp and /usr/spool are simply symlinks to /var/tmp and
> /var/spool, respectively, for performance.
> 
> -- Mike
> 
> 
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+----------------------------------------------+
Gerald Feldman <gaf at mediaone.net>
Boston Computer Solutions and Consulting
ICQ#156300
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