[SOLVED] Size of root "/" directory

ethereal1m · 04-05-2010, 03:39 AM

Dear all,
what is the ideal size of "/" (root) directory? Some people suggested to configure it between 2G - 5G depending on the installation. However, with full slackware installation, with 6G "/" size, it left me only around 400mb space left.

Is this common, or I did something wrong the installation? With only around 400mb space left, isn't this too small?

Regards,
Ethereal1m

linuxlover.chaitanya · 04-05-2010, 03:45 AM

It will depend how you partition your drive. If you only have / and swap then you would need a larger /. If you have separate partitions for home and other, then 10-15 gig should be good.
It will also depend on your installation. If you are installing a full blown distribution with all the applications, then 6 gig should not be enough. And you need to also take care of the future updates and upgrades that might come.
For a dedicated server where you would seldomly install external softwares, 5gig should be enough.

bakdong · 04-05-2010, 03:49 AM

Different people will have their own favourite partitioning schemes and sizes. I used to have separate partitions (or disks) for /var, /home, /usr, /boot, and the root dir. If you do this, the root doesn't need much space at all. The CentOS distributions default to a small partition for the /boot directory and the rest for /. Nowadays I use LVM extensively, which means that if I need some extra space I can reconfigure without too much effort so the initial decision isn't that important. You don't want to be left with 400MB hanging around though. That won't be much use to you.

ganiutomo · 04-05-2010, 03:50 AM

did you separate other directory? like /home /usr /var?
if this true then 2-5G is sufficient.
but your situation is likely because you don't separate the other directory, specially the "/usr" and "/var" directory.

ethereal1m · 04-05-2010, 05:54 AM

I have full blown installation of slackware intallation there, even though /usr and /home are in different partition, I think 6G is not enough.

My case is, I want to install a full blown Slackware installation. This is because I'm a new Linux and Slackware user and will strip down the applications latter on.

If I remove some of the packages, will it reduce the size of "/" (I assume yes)?

catkin · 04-05-2010, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ethereal1m

I have full blown installation of slackware intallation there, even though /usr and /home are in different partition, I think 6G is not enough.

+1 to that

I started with / at 6 GB but soon found it was not enough (almost but not quite). / includes /usr but not /var or /opt and with most of what sits under /home on a separate file system.

Here's how it looks now

Code:

Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root      jfs     14G  5.5G  8.6G  39% /
/dev/mapper/CW8-home
              ext3     50G   33G   15G  69% /home/c/d
/dev/mapper/CW8-s_opt
              ext4   1008M  731M  227M  77% /opt
/dev/mapper/CW8-s_var
              ext4     50G   41G  6.7G  86% /var
/dev/mapper/CW8-srv
              ext3     50G   27G   21G  57% /srv
/dev/sda2     ext3    236M   87M  138M  39% /boot

Notes: this usage is unusual (aren't they all?!) in that

/ includes /home/c/src with 800 MB of kernel build space.
/opt has VirtualBox, OpenOffice and Bacula programs.
/srv has Virtual disk images and a 4 GB software library.
/var has a lot of backup data.

brianL · 04-05-2010, 06:20 AM

I've only ever used / and swap. My desktop and laptop both have 160 GB HDDs. Laptop is evenly divided between XP Pro and Slack. Desktop has approx. 120 GB for Slack64 (room for VBox .vdis), and approx. 40 GB unallocated.

codemaniac · 04-05-2010, 06:35 AM

i have no separate /home partition ..The root is of 24 gigs...

ethereal1m · 04-05-2010, 06:56 AM

Thanks for the useful inputs

linuxlover.chaitanya · 04-06-2010, 01:46 AM

I too seldomly use /home on different partition on desktop. While upgrading or updating the distribution I usually take backup on external drive and choose to reformat the system and instead of upgrading the OS, I tend to reinstall the new one from scratch. And with / and swap, I have not had any trouble yet. So far so good though.
But on servers, it depends entirely.