[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Installing
On Sat, 26 Dec 1998, Gaal Yahas wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 25, 1998 at 05:54:29PM +0000, Peter L. Peres wrote:
> > > Please explain how having several partitions helps in this situation.
> >
> > When you already have several partitions, you can usually move things off
> > of one of them (which is not root and can be umounted at run time) into a
> > tar.gz file or to another system over a network, and then put whatever fs
> > you need on it (including non-Linux).
>
> Do you find you need this often?
I have 2 dual boot machines and one pure Linux. When I move disks I do
things like that. BTW with a root-only partition you can install a Linux
upgrade w/o thoughts of overwriting configured data and programs in /usr
etc.
> on small disks especially, I find seperate partitions to be a
> real pain. If you don't know exactly what you're going to put
> on the disk in advance, a small (tens on MB) difference in
> layout to the wrong side means the sort of gymnastics that come
> close to reinstallation.
Don't you like that ancient game called 'The Towers of Hanoi' ? The one
with the priests moving disks between *three* spikes ? ;) ;)
> are wont to do) you simply cannot tell in advance how much /opt
> needs, and how much to put in /usr/local.
No, but you can make it a partition anyway, so it will be linked, and if
it grows, you just mount another disk and repoint the link (after copying
the contents of the old one). No problem.
HOWEVER if you do not have a link already, then you will need to make one
(to point to the new disk), and then test each and every reference passing
through that node for function. Linked libs and security-conscious progs
are delighted to balk at this point, if not already installed like this.
> Nice, but. But you could have tgzed the files, not the disk,
> and then get
> - the ability to access a random file in the archive
> - the ability to open the archive on a different disk,
> or a different filesystem, or a differently sized partition
Remember that you can loop-mount any fs image that Linux knows about...
and that you can't copy certain disk images (f.ex. certain database
image partitions) otherwise.
> #ifdef FLAME
> BTW: however did you people label this "the redmond way"!? the
It was just me, not people.
> redmond way is to give every partition its own root, with no
> way of migrating software packages from one disk to the other
> (regedit32, anyone?), AND having the names of each root change
> after they are installed (ever had your D: pushed to be E: after
> adding a second disk?), AND not even having symbolic links to
No, because I limit my Loose activities to an absolute minimum. ;)
> save you (oh thanks Bill, I heard you're delaying NT5^H2000 to
> come up with the next century's fs technology - only why should
> incorporating it take 25 years from its invention?)
> #endif
re: 'redmond way': afaik DOS was the 1st OS to come up with the idea of
one big blob of a disk partition. All the previous systems used either a
disk set or a partition set. Also all the ones that came after it. Even
CP/M had a crude partitioning scheme on floppies afaik.
The present day partition tables for PC clones are a later hack that was
cooked up when the industry 'experts' who had predicted that 512k of RAM
will be enough for 'a long time' saw disk sizes go beyond what FAT12 can
manage and began to suspect the rest.
Peter