Re: Problem: How to resize FreeBSD "partitions" on a live system?

In article <1150422511.937242.238610@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
KimmoA <kimmoa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It seems that your preferred suggestion is actually to make a symlink
to a /usr location. While I can see that it could work, doesn't that
take away the entire point of dividing the system from the beginning?

And you aren't limited to the defaul / /var and and /usr. I often
add at least one more - often called /usr2 - so that I have a
workspace that will not polute anything else.

The beauty of Unix is you can customize to fit your needs. MS
never seems to understand that.

Also, isn't it bad practice to change the default location? I am myself
still more than a little confused over "Unix" directory structure to
begin with, but it seems that they have been thought through and have a
very good reason for being that way. Or am I wrong?

Read man 7 hier - it explains the entire structure.
You will find layouts differ between commercial Unix systems,
but all are similar.

Yes, I am a perfectionist. I can't stand unclean systems and can
actually lose sleep over that kind of thing, even if everything works
perfectly fine and nobody will ever know about it (but me, that is).

Having the ability to keep a system clean is a good reason to
NOT to put everyting in /. In a previous reply I mentioned
that if you keep the base os in /, then you can actually remake
the / filesystem and install the OS from ground up and KNOW it is
clean. Everything is else is under the users control.

In the past, when I have asked something similar, I have basically got
replies such as "that's why you can easily change it later" (referring
to re-arranging space for the partitions). It doesn't seem to be that
easy at all...

The only way in Unix is to basically backup the system - and then
remakes the filesystem.

In Windows, I remember using some commercial third-party GUI tool
("Partition Magic"?) that could easily re-arrange them. I must admit
that I expected there to be some kind of program bundeled with FreeBSD
that could change the "slices" freely, only requiring a reboot to take
action... Apparently, that is not the case.

The difference in the design of the filesystems between MS and Unix
is extreme to say the least. Before the NTFS system the base
MS system was about as crude as the orignal CP/M file system
from the 1970s - and MS did start with that as a base.

That'w why MS filesytems [ some won't even call it a system but
just a file-handler] NEED to be defragmented, but the UFS file
system in BSD [from which most of the FFS implementations in
commercial Unix systems sprang from] keeps fragmentation low be
determing placement of files across the disk, not just grabbing the
first free space you find.

If you have installed the documentation you can look in
/usr/doc/<baselangauge>/books/design44-bsd to get an overview and
more information on the filesystem.

It's not as highly details as the hardboond books from whence it
came, but it servers well for many users.

Hmm... I'm leaning towards letting everything be at / + swap, because I
take backups only of my own files, reinstalling the system in case of
an emergency... It's the philosophy and performance parts that worry
me...

From my Unix experience - dating back to 1983 - I'd advise against
it, but it's your system.

The best way to learn Unix is to destroy a system a few times.
In fast a friend of mine has a site that is
http://www.learnbydestroying.com. Targeted originally to SCO
systems, Jeff has a bit of everything there.

Bill


--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
.

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