On Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:41, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Looking in the "detailed system information" part of the GNOME system > information monitoring software, I see some things under "disk information" > that I don't completely understand. Here's a rundown of all the info: > > 1. Mount point: / > /dev/hdc1 > type ext2 > 3,189 MB, 2,564 free (2,726 superuser) > 415,168 inodes, 390,113 free > > - okay, I know that's my root partition from when I ran diskdrake way back > when. my questions here are: what's the significance of the superuser > distinction in the memory sizes? what are inodes? i kept up with the ext2 > vs reiser debate and i think i'd like to switch to reiser, how do i do > that? Imagine this scenario: a user fills up a system's hard drive. How is the superuser (i.e. root) meant to work on this system when the drive is full? The solution is to set aside a bit of extra space for the superuser to use in case of an emergency. That is why the superuser has more free space than ordinary users. Ext2 reserves 5% of space for superuser use. If you look at your above stats you will see that this is the case for your system: 2726 - 2564 = 162 MB 162 / 3189 x 100 = 5% Switching to ReiserFS requires making a backup of all your data, reformatting the partition and restoring your data. I suggest that you do a fresh install of Mandrake (Freq 3 was just released so now is a good time), using the installer to format your partition as ReiserFS. You can even modify your partitioning structure if you so desire. The Filesystems HOWTO (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Filesystems-HOWTO.html) unfortunately has this marked as "(todo)". In short, an inode is the volume data structure used by some filesystems to implement the abstraction of a file. Ext2 is an example of an inode-based filesystem. ReiserFS does not have inodes. I am not sure about JFS and XFS. > 2. Mount point: /proc > device none > type proc > no information for this filesystem > > - what's up? im clueless. what's proc and why is it its own filesystem > type? why is there no information? > > 3. Moint poing: /dev/pts > device none > type devpts > no information > > - same questions as #2, just substitute devpts for proc in the question. /dev had /proc are virtual filesystems. UNIX and Linux try to treat everything as a file, so virtual filesystems are created to provide an interface to system functions as if they were files. > 4. Mount point: /home > /dev/hdc7 > ext2 > 10,828 MB, 10,196 free (10,747 superuser) > 1,409.024 inodes, 1,401,348 free > > - is it just me or is this a MASSIVE waste of space? shouldnt this thing > be shrunk way down? i wont ask the superuser question or inode questions > again, just left the numbers in there in case they would matter for someone > who actually knows what theyre talking about. oh, and why is the superuser > free number bigger than the regular free one? /home is where all user data (including the superuser's) is stored. This includes all your user configuration files, all your documents and other non-system files. Usually when you are allocating hard drive space to partitions, you should allocate a reasonable amount to all the other directories (like /, /boot, /usr, /var and /tmp), and leave all the rest to /home. > 5. Mount point: /mnt/windows > /dev/hdd1 (i've gotten in the habit of calling this one "h diddy", as in, > "hey mom make sure to boot to 'h diddy' because ive got to write down a > website from my ie favorites) > vfat > 29,299 MB, 19,780 free (19,780 superuser) > 0 inodes, 0 free > > - what does superuser mean in a windows context? and hey, "dude, wheres my > inodes?" VFAT (FAT16, FAT32, etc.) is an ancient filesystem that is used by the Windos 9x series, and by DOS before that. It has no support for user permissions, and so reserves no space for the superuser (DOS and Windos are single-user OSs, after all). Unlike Ext2, its structure does not feature inodes. > 6. Mount point: /usr > /dev/hdc6 > ext2 > 4,921 MB, 1,885 free (2,135 superuser) > 640,000 inodes, 486,348 free > - dammit why'd i make this so small... this should be way bigger right? I would say that this partition is fine the way it is. 4.8GB should be enough for most uses. If you don't frequently install new packages, then /usr won't grow by much. > i'm planning a repartitioning party, see my next email for details. quick > question on this one: why are these out of order? why werent they > displayed hdc1, 6, 7, hdd, etc...? im listing them as they appear top to > bottom in the gnome system information tool. They are listed in a directory order. On my system, / is listed first, followed by /proc and /dev/pts -- just like on your system. > 7. Mount point: /proc/bus/usb > device /proc/bus/usb > type usbdevfs > 1,054,278 MB, 0 free (0 superuser) > 1,078,982,051 nodes, 0 free > > - i know this is my usb device, but how does my usb port have memory? is > usbdevfs (or the other filesystems cited in #s 2, 3, 8, and 9 for that > matter) a filesystem type? how are they different from other disk > filesystem types? > > 8. Mount point: /miscdevice automount(pid464) > type autofs > no information on this filesystem > > - clueless again, please explain. i know automount is for cds and stuff, > but whats the /misc? autofs? pid464? > > 9. Mount poing: /net > device automount(pid480) > type autofs > no information on this filesystem > > - ok, why 480 instead of 464? whats the difference between /misc and /net > automounts? Hmmm... I don't have any of these on my system (I don't use USB devices), so I'm not sure what they are. What is plugged into your USB port? > Looks like I'm done for now. Thank you to those who took the time to read > this because I know the printout is pretty overwhelming. > > Peace, > Isaac -- Sridhar Dhanapalan. "There are two major products that come from Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." -- Jeremy S. Anderson
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