Chuck Yerkes <chuck+nbsd@2003.snew.com> writes:
> Why a separate root in general?
> 
> 1) "Whoops, was I in /usr/lib/ when I typed 'rm l*'?"
>    Seems that "cd /hom/echuck/tmp/" failed and I typed the rm before
>    noticing.
>    More realistically, it meant that the junior system admin
>    (or tired sr) has to take an action before making /usr/ rw.
>    Or that hack to the FooDaemon that lets me overwrite /usr/bin/vi.

I have never done such a thing, and besides, these days, replacing
/usr/lib is a couple of minutes work.

> 2) /var/ MUST be read write (recall: we're not talking cf appliance
>    machines).  Nothing like having logs or lots of mail take up
>    that last disk space on root.

I tend to make everything the one partition, so that is pretty easy. :)

>    Well, in systems used by groups of people (ie. not at home), /usr
> and /usr/local (oft the same) grow and this gets replaced and someone
> needs that and put it in and, oh where did the space go?

Thats why I like having one big partition. On a 120G drive, I don't
like deciding /usr/pkg needs N gigs and /home needs M gigs etc. I just
make it one big partition and I rarely have trouble. I used to spend
lots of time symlinking crud back and forth because of space
misallocations -- it no longer happens...

> 40GB root scare me and lead people to really sloppy system admin.

I blow away my machines rather frequently -- it is unusual for
something to remain lying about for long.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry@piermont.com