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Date:      Wed, 28 Mar 2001 19:30:19 -0600 (CST)
From:      Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com>
To:        Hervey Wilson <herveyw@dynamic-cast.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: How much space for /usr ?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0103281825440.41452-100000@ren.sasknow.com>
In-Reply-To: <006e01c0b7da$58aed420$2e7c1aac@redmond.corp.microsoft.com>

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Hervey Wilson wrote to freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG:

> Like an earlier poster, I am a FreeBSD newbie in the process of
> migrating my home server away from Linux. 

Great! Welcome to FreeBSD.

> It's been an interesting experience, sometimes frustrating, 

If it wasn't a bit frustrating/challenging at times, it wouldn't be nearly
as rewarding when you figure it out.

> but I think I'm gradually figuring it out :) Certainly, I'm *way*
> happier with the "state" of the server in that it seems to perform
> better and feels much cleaner (at least in terms of the amount of
> stuff installed).
> 
> Before I get too locked in to my current installation, I'd like to
> know how much space people typically allocate for the /usr partition.
> I gave it 2Gb but, after using Cvsup to sync ports-all and sys-all,
> building a new kernel plus XFree86-4 and KDE2, I noticed that I was
> using nearly 1Gb of the partition. I did "make clean" in /usr/ports
> but I'm still looking at 800Mb. Around 180Mb of this is for .tgz files
> in /usr/ports/distfiles that could, at a pinch, be deleted. However,
> given that I have a 30Gb disk, with most allocated to /home, should I
> just do a re-install and allocate more space to /usr ?

Hervey, there's ALWAYS something you can do. ;-)

I have a FreeBSD 3.5 system with a 2GB /usr partition that has been about
95% full for the last year or so. I don't forsee a need to increase
storage there. (Though it's a server, and a stable one at that--I'm not in
the habit of installing apps on it very often ;-)  4.2 is actually not a
lot worse on user requirements, depending on which packages you install. I
find that very seldom do I need more than 2GB for /usr. The only time I
would consider it is on an app test/development machine... And then 3-4GB
would probably be plenty lots. (My /var, on the other hand, is striped on
90GB).

2GB is enough for the tastes of most people.. especially if you have a
large /home partition.  Remember, you can always link stuff out of /usr if
you like. (For instance, many people symlink /usr/obj to /home/obj or
similar). Clean up your distfiles once in a while (you won't normally need
them again, and if you do, make(1) can always fetch them automatically).
Clean out work directories in ports that have been built (make clean -- I
think you already did that). And, due to the sheer number of files in
/usr/ports (50-85,000+), ports skeletons can be suprisingly large in
numbers on an 8192/1024 filesystem.

	Script started on Wed Mar 28 18:41:58 2001
	501 ryan@ren:/usr/ports $> du -d 0 games
	4267	games	/* 4267 K */
	502 ryan@ren:/usr/ports $> tar czf - games | wc -c
	  525563 	/* 514K */
	502 ryan@ren:/usr/ports $> exit
	exit
	Script done on Wed Mar 28 18:42:32 2001

Compressing (.tar.gz) the games tree would result in almost a 90% space
savings, there. Only thing to watch for is dependencies (I chose games
because very few packages depend on anything there ;-) You'd have to
remember to restore those archives if installing other ports that depend
on them.

Of course, you could always move /usr/ports to /home/ports.

Or... If you don't want to worry about all of that... make a bigger /usr
slice ;-)

> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Hervey.
> 
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
> 

-- 
  Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com>
  Network Administrator, Accounts

  SaskNow Technologies - http://www.sasknow.com
  #106-380 3120 8th St E - Saskatoon, SK - S7H 0W2

        Tel: 306-664-3600   Fax: 306-664-1161   Saskatoon
  Toll-Free: 877-727-5669     (877-SASKNOW)     North America


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