Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 13:09 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

David Wright writes:

...

Just a word of warning regarding the new default partition sizes suggested by YaST. I have a 10GB root partition on my laptop and just went to install IBM Rational Software Architect. The install files take up around 2.5GB of space and the installed program itself takes another 2GB (I eliminated some of the options I didn't need)

We could change the parameter for the calculation, currently we use 10 GB as maximal size for root - but this is just one parameter to change...

So, what do others think?

You can change the upper limit to 20 GB I think. New machines often have harddisk with 250 or more GB. Also games like Doom or Quake need more than 2 GB! And: shrinking a big root partition later is easier, than growing it :-) -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Marcel Hilzinger Linux New Media AG Süskindstr. 4 D-81929 München Tel: +49 (89) 99 34 11 0 Fax: +49 (89) 99 34 11 99

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 13:38 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

Marcel Hilzinger writes:

...

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 13:09 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

...

David Wright writes:

...

Just a word of warning regarding the new default partition sizes suggested by YaST. I have a 10GB root partition on my laptop and just went to install IBM Rational Software Architect. The install files take up around 2.5GB of space and the installed program itself takes another 2GB (I eliminated some of the options I didn't need)

We could change the parameter for the calculation, currently we use 10 GB as maximal size for root - but this is just one parameter to change...

So, what do others think?

You can change the upper limit to 20 GB I think. New machines often have harddisk with 250 or more GB. Also games like Doom or Quake need more than 2 GB!

And: shrinking a big root partition later is easier, than growing it :-)

Makes sense.

Bug #158608 - will be fixed for RC1,

Perhaps another bugzilla candidate: If you decide not to accept the suggestions made by YaST, you can choose between 3 options now: 1. change suggestion 2. custom partitioning based on suggestion 3. expert partitioning Does anybody use the second one? In my opinion it makes things only more complex and has no practical use. -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Marcel Hilzinger Linux New Media AG Süskindstr. 4 D-81929 München Tel: +49 (89) 99 34 11 0 Fax: +49 (89) 99 34 11 99

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 14:06 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

Marcel Hilzinger writes:

...

Perhaps another bugzilla candidate:

But none for 10.1 too solve...

Come on, there is still one month left ;-) -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Marcel Hilzinger Linux New Media AG Süskindstr. 4 D-81929 München Tel: +49 (89) 99 34 11 0 Fax: +49 (89) 99 34 11 99

Perhaps another bugzilla candidate: If you decide not to accept the suggestions made by YaST, you can choose between 3 options now:

1. change suggestion 2. custom partitioning based on suggestion 3. expert partitioning

Does anybody use the second one? In my opinion it makes things only more complex and has no practical use.

I always did, cause I had no idea how it went and always editted the siseze of the partition but all the other stff was set up right.It is a good function for noob-users, so let it stay there. It is nice for noob-users cause it is a midway between 'total control and 'no control'. Good way to learn people how partitioning works. So, no need to dump it. Azerion

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 13:38 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

Marcel Hilzinger writes:

...

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 13:09 schrieb Andreas Jaeger:

...

David Wright writes:

...

Just a word of warning regarding the new default partition sizes suggested by YaST. I have a 10GB root partition on my laptop and just went to install IBM Rational Software Architect. The install files take up around 2.5GB of space and the installed program itself takes another 2GB (I eliminated some of the options I didn't need)

We could change the parameter for the calculation, currently we use 10 GB as maximal size for root - but this is just one parameter to change...

So, what do others think?

You can change the upper limit to 20 GB I think. New machines often have harddisk with 250 or more GB. Also games like Doom or Quake need more than 2 GB!

And: shrinking a big root partition later is easier, than growing it :-)

Makes sense.

Bug #158608 - will be fixed for RC1,

Andreas

Thanks Andreas, that was a quick reaction! ;-) I only posted to make people aware that the default might be a little small for some people, I hadn't expected such a big discussion. :-} Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 20:47 schrieb houghi:

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 07:42:21PM +0100, David Wright wrote:

...

I only posted to make people aware that the default might be a little small for some people, I hadn't expected such a big discussion. :-}

What I read is indeed that it MIGHT be for SOME people. If it would be that it WILL be for MOST people, then I agree to change it.

How it looks now a minority will be having problems with this and this will always be the case, no matter what size you choose.

The fact that this only comes up with Beta 8 and not earlier shows, I think, how many people will be affected.

houghi

This wasn't with Beta 8, I haven't had a chance to download it so far... This was with 6. But because of the many other issues in the testing and time, I hadn't got around to installing the Rational packages until now. It is installed on all of my 10.0 machines, but they have tended to have large root partitions or a single partition for the whole disk until now. Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 01:24:51PM +0100, Marcel Hilzinger wrote:

You can change the upper limit to 20 GB I think. New machines often have harddisk with 250 or more GB. Also games like Doom or Quake need more than 2 GB!

For large drives, that is not a real problem. The problem comes with smaller drives. I personally feel that 20GB is overkill. At this moment I use 5GB on /. That would mean that 15GB or 10% of my current JD won't be used. For extra large drives that is not a real issue. For smaller drives it is. houghi -- Nutze die Zeit. Sie ist das Kostbarste, was wir haben, denn es ist unwiederbringliche Lebenszeit. Leben ist aber mehr als Werk und Arbeit, und das Sein wichtiger als das Tun - Johannes Müller-Elmau

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 05:36:41PM +0100, Marcel Hilzinger wrote:

...

For large drives, that is not a real problem. The problem comes with smaller drives. I personally feel that 20GB is overkill. At this moment I use 5GB on /. That would mean that 15GB or 10% of my current JD won't be used.

It's dynamic. So changing the upper limit to 20 GB does not mean, that a 30 GB drive will have a 20 GB / partition.

I understand that it is dynamic. The devision is 1/3 2/3. This means that on a 60GB drive you have 20GB / and 40GB /home. In my case where I have installed the development stuff and the kernel source and some extra other stuff, I am wasting an extra 10GB on a 60GB. Having 5GB unused is something I could accept. 15GB is a real waste. It was clear from the beginning that it won't be ideal for everybody. So unless there is a new way to calculate, especially for the smaller drives, I am against it. There will indeed be people who install extra large software things. If you compare it to how many people will waste that extra 10GB, I think it is a fair tradeoff. houghi -- Nutze die Zeit. Sie ist das Kostbarste, was wir haben, denn es ist unwiederbringliche Lebenszeit. Leben ist aber mehr als Werk und Arbeit, und das Sein wichtiger als das Tun - Johannes Müller-Elmau

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 12:15:51PM -0500, Joseph M. Gaffney wrote:

Why does it have to be automated, really?

Ease of use

A simple question to the user could briefly explain intent, why a different size may be used, what the recommended guesstimate is, and so on. Most users who don't care will simply click "ok" with the given pre-determined size, and anyone with any particular interest greater than "who the hell cares" will not only be informed of whats suggested, but offer them the chance to make it more "right" - for them atleast.

That is done now as well. You get a brief explanation. Any more explanation during the installation process will be extremely confusing and won't be complete. The recommended guestimate is shown and is what we are discussing here. If people don't care, people will click OK. Also you do have the chance to make it more right for them. houghi -- Nutze die Zeit. Sie ist das Kostbarste, was wir haben, denn es ist unwiederbringliche Lebenszeit. Leben ist aber mehr als Werk und Arbeit, und das Sein wichtiger als das Tun - Johannes Müller-Elmau

On Thursday 16 March 2006 14:09, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

David Wright writes:

...

Just a word of warning regarding the new default partition sizes suggested by YaST. I have a 10GB root partition on my laptop and just went to install IBM Rational Software Architect. The install files take up around 2.5GB of space and the installed program itself takes another 2GB (I eliminated some of the options I didn't need)

We could change the parameter for the calculation, currently we use 10 GB as maximal size for root - but this is just one parameter to change...

So, what do others think?

I use one large partition for everything. Whenever I reinstall (every SUSE alpha/beta): 1. I mount the partition during installation ([Ctrl+Alt+F2] gives me a console 2. delete everything except /home2 (where I keep my data) 3. umount 4. carry on with installation 5. in the yast partitioner I select "Do not format" for the root partition. Having more that one partition on a desktop system is an unnecessary complication IMHO. It wastes space (because no partition will ever be 100% full) and can get you into the sort of trouble like the OP had. So I keep it simple.

On Thursday 16 March 2006 14:54, Pascal Bleser wrote:

Silviu Marin-Caea wrote: ...

...

I use one large partition for everything.

Whenever I reinstall (every SUSE alpha/beta): 1. I mount the partition during installation ([Ctrl+Alt+F2] gives me a console 2. delete everything except /home2 (where I keep my data)

wtf is /home2 supposed to be ? ;)

/home2 is a subdirectory, not a partition. I keep my data there because I recreate my profile (/home) with each installation, so I start testing with a clean slate. Helps at bug reporting.

I don't agree at all. Having /home on its own partition is very often a lifesaver. You could even wipe the root partition and reinstall something from scratch and you'd still have your data.

I was describing the exact same thing. You didn't quite read to the end :-) Your "wiping tool" is mkfs, mine is "rm --interactive --recursive /mnt". Just answer "no" when prompted about /home2 My method does not waste space and does not create any complications.

Also, to me, LVM is part of the perfect setup, but we've had that discussion already a few months ago.

How often do I see people in IRC asking for a way to add disk space to their Linux partition. Well, if it hasn't been virtualized with LVM in the first place

Well, if all they had was one large partition, there would be no such question. Simple solves it. However, everyone stubbornly wants more partitions. So they can shoot themselves in foot later and spend more time on resizing stuff.

Am Donnerstag, 16. März 2006 14:35 schrieb Pascal Bleser:

Silviu Marin-Caea wrote:

...

On Thursday 16 March 2006 14:54, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Silviu Marin-Caea wrote:

...

...

...

How often do I see people in IRC asking for a way to add disk space to their Linux partition. Well, if it hasn't been virtualized with LVM in the first place

Well, if all they had was one large partition, there would be no such question. Simple solves it.

No, with LVM you could add another disk and "merge" it into a single partition through the LV layer.

Right, but LVM makes many problems for beginners. It's hard to start a system with LVM (e.g from CD) if the bootloader is broken. It's even harder if you want to have encrypted filesystems. -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Marcel Hilzinger Linux New Media AG Süskindstr. 4 D-81929 München Tel: +49 (89) 99 34 11 0 Fax: +49 (89) 99 34 11 99

On 16 Mar 2006 at 14:44, Marcel Hilzinger wrote:

Right, but LVM makes many problems for beginners. It's hard to start a system with LVM (e.g from CD) if the bootloader is broken. It's even harder if you want to have encrypted filesystems.

Yes, two bugzillas: 1) booting from LVM doesn't work, but Yast accepts partitioning 2) resume from LV swap doesn't work. (but Yast accepts it also, even adds resume=...) Regards, Ulrich

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 01:32:41PM +0100, Andreas Vetter wrote:

But I am not aware of side effects, i.e. I don't know the algorithm.

1/3rd / and 2/3rd /home with a maximimum of 10GB

E.g. when you have a Laptop and 30 GB free space, you usually do not want everything in /. But an additional filesystem for stuff that doesn't change with SUSE versions, e.g. MP3s, Videos, that do not belong into /home.

Naturaly you must understand that it is just a guideline. Adding another partition for media or whatever will become extremely complex and will most likley be wrong for most people. houghi -- Nutze die Zeit. Sie ist das Kostbarste, was wir haben, denn es ist unwiederbringliche Lebenszeit. Leben ist aber mehr als Werk und Arbeit, und das Sein wichtiger als das Tun - Johannes Müller-Elmau

Am Freitag, 17. März 2006 23:24 schrieb Hans Witvliet:

On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 13:09 +0100, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

David Wright writes:

...

Just a word of warning regarding the new default partition sizes suggested by YaST. I have a 10GB root partition on my laptop and just went to install IBM Rational Software Architect. The install files take up around 2.5GB of space and the installed program itself takes another 2GB (I eliminated some of the options I didn't need)

We could change the parameter for the calculation, currently we use 10 GB as maximal size for root - but this is just one parameter to change...

So, what do others think?

Andreas

It's only because you're asking it, and i surely don't want to start an unholy war on the subject, but i was in the impression that it was good practice to keep root as small as possible (leaving some space to breath) /boot also as small as possible, RO, or not mounted at all /var should be big enough for any data for spool/mail/log /usr & /opt big enough for binaries (should not grow normally) /tmp whatever one needs as playground /home & /srv as much as possible

So why should the root partition be so big anyway?????

Hans

Because with SUSE 10.1 it suggests a partition scheme of root + /home, so just two partitions. I was just putting a warning in that people should think carefully about the size they need if following this default and wanting to install large applications like the Rational suite from IBM (just the one component without any the options was gobbling up over 2GB with another 2.5GB of temporary space for the compressed install images (IBM uses a Linux version of InstallShield by the look of it). With a fairly typical developer install, with Gnome and KDE loaded on my laptop, that crashed through the 10GB barrier that YaST suggests at install time. If I'd thought that I might need such a big app and had made allowances for it when setting up the machine it would have been OK, but I hadn't thought about it. This means however that tools like Requisite Pro and Websphere and the testing tools can't be added at all without re-jigging the partitions (I'd probably need 20-30GB of space for root or /opt to install the complete suite). Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Am Samstag, 18. März 2006 15:30 schrieb houghi:

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 09:57:39AM +0100, David Wright wrote:

...

With a fairly typical developer install, with Gnome and KDE loaded on my laptop, that crashed through the 10GB barrier that YaST suggests at install time. If I'd thought that I might need such a big app and had made allowances for it when setting up the machine it would have been OK, but I hadn't thought about it. This means however that tools like Requisite Pro and Websphere and the testing tools can't be added at all without re-jigging the partitions (I'd probably need 20-30GB of space for root or /opt to install the complete suite).

First, needing 20-30 GB of space can not be an option as default. If you are going to install somethin that needs 30GB of /, I would expect you to know that.

yes, there is a very easy way to go about this, asuming you have plenty of space on /home. If you have only 20GB left on your 30GB HD and you need 30GB, then you indeed need to re-jig your partitions and perhaps even re-install. Even then the HD might nog be large enough.

So if you have enough space on your HD, this is what you can do: Make a directory /home/opt (or even /home/opt/IBM_LARGE_PRGRM). Rename /opt to /opt_old symlink /home/opt to /opt copy all of /opt_old to /opt Once all works, you can delete /opt_old

You can do this with each and every directory. If you need e.g. a larger /tmp, you can do that as well. If you use more then one directory, I would sugest something like /home/DIRS/opt and /home/DIRS/tmp

An extra advantage is that when you do a new installation with a newer version, or even a new OS, that data is still available on your second partition.

Disadvatage is that people will cry out loud because it is in the /home directory structure. As it is your machine, you can decide what is more important: Having a slightly off, but working personal PC or going through the trouble of re-formatting and having a nice clean /home. ;-)

houghi

That is essentially what I did, well, I made a /home/IBM and linked it to /opt/IBM, the rest of opt stayed where it was - I was in a hurry to set it up for an impromtue lecture at the Uni, so I didn't have time for niceties... That was the main reason for the e-mail, I had only installed it on a workstation that has a 120GB / partition and a 120GB /data partition, /home being on the root partition, so when I installed it there, there weren't any problems. I now set my test machines up with 20GB root partitions for testing, once I've worked out how much I actually need, I can re-asses the situation. As I've said before in this thread, I was posting a warning that people should think hard about what they need to allocate as the 10GB max. of the current Beta may be a little small for some purposes. The proposed max of 20GB might help some people with larger drives and larger needs, and has been said, it is dynamic, so it won't grab 20GB on a 30GB driver, and it is just a suggestion. I'll think about it some more, maybe I could start a wiki page on planning partition sizes and other considerations when looking to make a new install... Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Am Samstag, 18. März 2006 16:06 schrieb houghi:

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:49:58PM +0100, Frank-Michael Fischer wrote:

...

Let's assume users have got a DVD burning device. Then the default setup of a SUSE 10.1 installation puts intermediate burning files into /tmp.

I have a DVD burner, 10GB space and no problems.

...

Which is normally a directory under /. So just for this very purpose we almost 10GB free space. Otherwise users will just fail when duplicating a double layer DVD.

You are talking about a dual layer DVD burner. Most people do not have a dual layer burner. <snip>

Hmm, 3 of the 4 machines around me have dual-layer burners houghi ;-) And most machine bought today with a dual-layer burner built in will tend to have >150GB hard disks - laptops being an exception, the DL burnered laptop has only 80GB of disk space...

...

Therefore a "valid" configuration for a full desktop setup needs either a separate 10GB "/tmp "partition or at least a 16GB "/" partition. Anything else would get an ordinary user in trouble as soon as DVD burning comes into place.

So then please suggest how it should be calculated in your eyes. Also think that it should be workable on smaller HD's. Not everybody has a 250GB HD.

houghi

I think this is another topic for the (my?) Partitioning page... Everybody is going to have different requirements, so I am with you in a certain respect, continually growing the root partition for everybody because some people might need more is not the real answer, but there are a lot of applications that do need more space either on root or on one of the directories that default to being on the root partition. I'm logging into the Wiki as I write this, I'll start on writing a page for this... (I did a search and didn't find an existing one) I propose something like: Installation Planning Hardware Partitioning Software Package Selection Network Configuration ... Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Am Samstag, 18. März 2006 16:50 schrieb houghi:

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 04:18:12PM +0100, David Wright wrote: <snip>

...

I'm logging into the Wiki as I write this, I'll start on writing a page for this... (I did a search and didn't find an existing one)

I propose something like:

Installation Planning Hardware Partitioning Software Package Selection Network Configuration ...

Let it be known that the page is for advanced users. Beginners should just be able to click OK.

houghi

I would have thought advanced users would already be able to answer most of the questions themselves, it is the beginners who need to learn a little about Linux and how it should be set up... Anyway, I'll write it and anybody who wants information can read it, they can work out whether it is useful for them or not ;-) Dave -- "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

houghi wrote:

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:49:58PM +0100, Frank-Michael Fischer wrote:

...

Let's assume users have got a DVD burning device. Then the default setup of a SUSE 10.1 installation puts intermediate burning files into /tmp.

I have a DVD burner, 10GB space and no problems.

...

Which is normally a directory under /. So just for this very purpose we almost 10GB free space. Otherwise users will just fail when duplicating a double layer DVD.

You are talking about a dual layer DVD burner. Most people do not have a dual layer burner. <snip>

...

Therefore a "valid" configuration for a full desktop setup needs either a separate 10GB "/tmp "partition or at least a 16GB "/" partition. Anything else would get an ordinary user in trouble as soon as DVD burning comes into place.

So then please suggest how it should be calculated in your eyes. Also think that it should be workable on smaller HD's. Not everybody has a 250GB HD.

houghi

It doesn't help that YOU can work with a 10GB "/" partition, not even that I can work with 8GB. My suggestion: whenever hwinfo says there is a DVD burner in the system the default suggestion should be a separate 10GB "/tmp" partition. If there isn't enough space for it, post a warning and go for one "/" partition. The we are on the safe side. A more complicated approach would be to come up with a k3b or such defaulting its temporary space to the user's home directory. Very impractical, since there is a reason for a joint "/tmp" directory, isn't it? FMF