Root partition size for GIS software.

digger95 · 05-28-2008, 11:51 AM

I'm going to be compiling a lot of GIS and graphics software this summer on my Slackware machine using this list as a general guide. I won't be installing 'all' of that but I'll certainly be hitting the big ones.

My current disk usage looks like this:

Code:

bash-3.1$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2             7.6G  4.3G  2.9G  60% /
/dev/hda3              65G  733M   61G   2% /home
tmpfs                 248M     0  248M   0% /dev/shm

I'm concerned that my root partition isn't big enough and want to plan ahead for everything I want to accomplish. It's not a bad time to re-partition and start over because I just recently finished the semester at school and backed up all of my data to cd-rom.

I'm at a loss for how much space to give my root partition... 12GB? 20GB? Alternatively I could just simplify my setup and go with / and swap, then it won't even be a concern. I've never really made great use of the separate /home partition anyway.

Thanks for any ideas.

Dig

GrapefruiTgirl · 05-28-2008, 12:52 PM

I figure that as it sits now, if it were me, I would be concerned too that the root partition is going to be something of a tight squeeze, especially considering that such things as databases (PostGre) can get bigger and bigger and bigger and... Well, you see the idea

That said, there are several options (keeping in mind that for system maintenance reason & speed of fscking at boot, a reasonably small / partition is practical):

Option 1 - bigger is better

so making the available space bigger than needed is OK, as you can always shrink it later if you have all you want installed and feel you have wasted space. After looking it the list of software (some of which I have installed and is really quite small-- GPSDrive, Firefox, Kontact, Qcad, PHPAdmin, Gwenview, Nvu, etc..) I suspect 20GB would be plenty, but as mentioned, if you,re nervous, go with 25 or 30GB. That IS plenty!

Option 2 - Install stuff to /home or somewhere else with more space. Use the $DESTDIR= or $PREFIX= variables to package & install stuff to wherever you like. You have 60GB for /home which is loads of space. You can make use of it this way.

Option 3 - <insert more ideas here, other users.>

Way back when I installed Slack for the first time, I made a 30GB / partition. That was WAY too big. Later I reduced it to 20GB. Still too big. Now it is 15GB, and still maybe only 1/2 full if that (I am not using any databases though). I have NEVER had issues or concerns with space, or lack thereof. I don't hesitate to install whatever I please; remember, a downloaded source package is generally going to be significantly larger than the compiled application. A fine example is the Linux kernel: 200MB of code, compressed for download is 50MB, and compiled is like a few MB. Cool

If you want to be really accurate, visit the download sites for the applications in your list, add up the package sizes, double the total, and maybe add some extra (a GB or two) for database space.

Again, you can always shrink (or enlarge) later.

Have fun!

Sasha

digger95 · 05-28-2008, 01:00 PM

Thanks for the great tips Sasha.

I hadn't even considered simply resizing my existing partitions. Since I've got my stuff backed up and was planning to reinstall anyway, I might as well give it a shot. Won't hurt a thing if I botch it up. Besides, it's another thing to learn.

Dig

GrapefruiTgirl · 05-28-2008, 01:46 PM

Exactly

and with something like Gparted (parted with the GTK frontend) used from a live CD or from one of many bootable small CDs that include it which you can download, resizing Linux partitions is easy as pie and almost foolproof (it's as foolproof as resizing partitions can be-- Gparted has never failed me.)

Best of success!

SVA

digger95 · 06-03-2008, 01:49 PM

Hi again,

Well I ended up just reformatting the drive as originally intended (I ran out of blank discs to make a live gparted cd). I kept things simple and just made a swap (hda1) and root (hda2). I figure this way everything can take as much space as it needs and there's no future worry.

The thing is though, my system seems more sluggish than before. Is this just in my head, or does allocating a separate partition for root actually increase disk access time?

Thanks for any input,

Dig