Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
On Fri, 17 Sep 1999 07:30:37 -0500, David Starner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Sep 17, 1999 at 11:38:29AM +0100, Chris Rutter wrote: On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, David Bristel wrote: Yes, either this or a FIFO expiration policy on /var/cache/apt/packages which gets automatically applied when space runs out. Or possibly the option of using /tmp/.apt, with a warning message that the packages are in there and need to be moved into the cache. Neither of these will help most people. Space running out can happen on one apt-run - nothing in the cache, slink - potato. /tmp is usually on the / partition, which probably has less space than anything (and on many installs ends up on the / partition - at least that's how I was show to do it.) I generally NFS mount /var/cache/apt from a larger machine when upgrading small ones. I have daemons that implement deletion of oldest files in a directory structure but this doesn't help apt as David pointed out. Alternatively, is there any other, er, `in bits' way that the upgrade can be done? Check available space, download one bunch of files, install, delete the .debs, interate. Indeed, the option (!) of doing download/unpack/configure/delete.deb over each package instead of three distinct download/unpack/configure phases would be really nice for limited-space machines. -- I don't speak for Corel, I just work for them. Use [EMAIL PROTECTED] for work, [EMAIL PROTECTED] for play, and [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP. PGP fingerprint: 01 94 0F B3 46 B7 71 C3 D4 98 39 99 1B 34 45 A1 PGP public key: http://www.hungrycats.org/~zblaxell/pgp-public.txt
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, David Bristel wrote: With this in mind, I think that having a configuration variable for apt that would allow the downloaded .deb files to be put in a user defined place. This way, if your /var is close to being full, you could, for example, drop it into a temporary directory on /home for the upgrade. This isn't the best place, but on many systems, /home is one of the largest partitions on a system, and tends to have a good ammount of free space on it because users may use a large ammount of space. Yes, either this or a FIFO expiration policy on /var/cache/apt/packages which gets automatically applied when space runs out. Or possibly the option of using /tmp/.apt, with a warning message that the packages are in there and need to be moved into the cache. I *don't* think that `apt' (or any other package) should use any undefined directories (such as /home) for temporary storage. If people want that, they'll symlink /tmp - /home/.tmp or something. Alternatively, is there any other, er, `in bits' way that the upgrade can be done? -- Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] ( http://www.fluff.org/chris )
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
On Fri, Sep 17, 1999 at 11:38:29AM +0100, Chris Rutter wrote: On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, David Bristel wrote: With this in mind, I think that having a configuration variable for apt that would allow the downloaded .deb files to be put in a user defined place. This way, if your /var is close to being full, you could, for example, drop it into a temporary directory on /home for the upgrade. This isn't the best place, but on many systems, /home is one of the largest partitions on a system, and tends to have a good ammount of free space on it because users may use a large ammount of space. Yes, either this or a FIFO expiration policy on /var/cache/apt/packages which gets automatically applied when space runs out. Or possibly the option of using /tmp/.apt, with a warning message that the packages are in there and need to be moved into the cache. Neither of these will help most people. Space running out can happen on one apt-run - nothing in the cache, slink - potato. /tmp is usually on the / partition, which probably has less space than anything (and on many installs ends up on the / partition - at least that's how I was show to do it.) I *don't* think that `apt' (or any other package) should use any undefined directories (such as /home) for temporary storage. If people want that, they'll symlink /tmp - /home/.tmp or something. Not on a general basis. But it would be nice to be able to tell it to use /home or whereever for it. (/home is a bad idea - just for saftey's sake, I'd give it a directory where it has complete control of the contents.) Alternatively, is there any other, er, `in bits' way that the upgrade can be done? Check available space, download one bunch of files, install, delete the .debs, interate. David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
On Fri, Sep 17, 1999 at 07:30:37AM -0500, David Starner wrote: one apt-run - nothing in the cache, slink - potato. /tmp is usually on the / partition, which probably has less space than anything (and on many installs ends up on the / partition - at least that's how I was ^ show to do it.) On many installs /var ends up on the / partition - sorry. David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
With Debian distributions, and small disks, I have found this to always be sufficient: / 32M /var 96M swap 32M or more. /usr all the rest /home is a symlink to /usr/home /tmp is a symlink to /var/tmp For more than 150 megs of disk space, I have found this the best way of partitioning. For less, you are correct, one big filesystem is the only way to go. For your average user, with their brand new 4.3 gig harddrive (smallest you can buy these days), it's the only way to go. BTW, one great thing about Linux is, fsck is incredibly fast compared to BSD :-) Thing is, if you crash, you can boot in single user mode, and fsck'ing / will be almost instantaneous, and you'll have a usable system, instead of being stuck waiting for fsck. You can then fsck /usr at your discretion. The one large partition scheme is indeed the only solution for small drives. But given they are in such a vast minority, the current scheme of providing sensible defaults and popping the installer into a tool for creating your own arbitrary partition scheme is really the best. (at least, Im ASSUMING we do that the same as FreeBSD... I haven't installed Debian in a while. Just duplicated already working drives) On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Justin Penney wrote: About partitioning. Please leave it alone. I have always had smallish hard drives and use Debian for my desktop (and my servers but...) I actually recommend 1 large partition and swap space for nearly every user. I don't do that for myself but i have run inot mucho trouble because of bad predictions on my behalf. I don't want anyone else carving up my hard drive because it's actually wasted space to me. I currently have / and /home as the only seperate partitions, i keep my home dir and it's easy like this. How do you divide a 113? What about a 420? what about a 1.2 or 6.4 or 13.2? Too many variables no one way to do it.
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
Jonathan Walther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: With Debian distributions, and small disks, I have found this to always be sufficient: / 32M /var 96M swap 32M or more. /usr all the rest /home is a symlink to /usr/home /tmp is a symlink to /var/tmp So what happens to the stuff in /var/tmp on reboot? /var/tmp is supposed to be preserved across reboots and /tmp isn't. Some programs (e.g. vi) rely on this behaviour? BTW, your /var might not be big enough to handle an upgrade from slink to potato. (Depending on whether the source of the packages is net or CD, I think.) Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Jonathan Walther wrote: drives. But given they are in such a vast minority, the current scheme of providing sensible defaults and popping the installer into a tool for creating your own arbitrary partition scheme is really the best. (at least, Im ASSUMING we do that the same as FreeBSD... I haven't installed Debian in a while. Just duplicated already working drives) You say this, but all almost every single one of my drives 120MB (3.6GB, 6GB, 9GB, 13.5GB, 17GB) are partitioned into a single huge Linux partition (and 256MB swap) -- I thought and hard about this, and I have yet to have come across a time where having several partitions would have been easier. Initially, when I setup the first large multi-user system that I admin, I *did* split it into lots of little bits (on a 6GB disk). This was a *nightmare* -- bits of /usr were symlinked into /home; bits of /var were symlinked into /usr, and so on. I had constant nightmares trying to distribute the disk load evenly and ensure free space was there all around, so when I finally reinstalled it (after 4 years) with Debian, I left both of its disks as single huge partitions, so that it now has 8GB / and 6GB /home, and I've been happier. I'm not especially bothered about the fsck time -- this box goes down only 3 or 4 times a year, if that. Backups are taken (over the network), and if my data crashes on the system, then I'll reconstruct from that. With the (good) Debian policy of fully integrating packages into the /usr, /var tree (rather than just leaving them in a heap), saving /var at the expense of /usr wouldn't be terribly useful, anyway. So, er, what reasons are there (for me, at least, and I think I'm fairly typical of small--medium size system admins) for splitting? -- Chris [EMAIL PROTECTED] ( http://www.fluff.org/chris )
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
BTW, one great thing about Linux is, fsck is incredibly fast compared to BSD :-) You haven't seen soft-updates on FreeBSD, have you?
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
Hi Ship's Log, Lt. Steve Dunham, Stardate 160999.0113: /var 96M BTW, your /var might not be big enough to handle an upgrade from slink to potato. (Depending on whether the source of the packages is net or CD, I think.) That's right, but I think it might be more a 'bug' in apt-get then in the partitioning. I had problems with my 1GB /var when I tried to do a compleat upgrade within potato. Greetings -- Alexander N. Benner - The Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper: -5- A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources.
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
With this in mind, I think that having a configuration variable for apt that would allow the downloaded .deb files to be put in a user defined place. This way, if your /var is close to being full, you could, for example, drop it into a temporary directory on /home for the upgrade. This isn't the best place, but on many systems, /home is one of the largest partitions on a system, and tends to have a good ammount of free space on it because users may use a large ammount of space. Dave Bristel On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Alexander N. Benner wrote: Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 11:14:44 +0200 From: Alexander N. Benner [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: deb-devel debian-devel@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer) Resent-Date: 16 Sep 1999 14:47:19 - Resent-From: debian-devel@lists.debian.org Resent-cc: recipient list not shown: ; Hi Ship's Log, Lt. Steve Dunham, Stardate 160999.0113: /var 96M BTW, your /var might not be big enough to handle an upgrade from slink to potato. (Depending on whether the source of the packages is net or CD, I think.) That's right, but I think it might be more a 'bug' in apt-get then in the partitioning. I had problems with my 1GB /var when I tried to do a compleat upgrade within potato. Greetings -- Alexander N. Benner - The Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper: -5- A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
* David == David Bristel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David With this in mind, I think that having a configuration variable David for apt that would allow the downloaded .deb files to be put in David a user qdefined place. apt-get -o APT::Dir::Cache=/home/me/download/ upgrade should do it I think. Ciao, Martin
Re: history (Was Re: Corel/Debian Linux Installer)
On 16-Sep-99, 11:23 (CDT), David Bristel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With this in mind, I think that having a configuration variable for apt that would allow the downloaded .deb files to be put in a user defined place. This way, if your /var is close to being full, you could, for example, drop it into a temporary directory on /home for the upgrade. rmdir /var/cache/apt/archives ln -s /home/aptcache /var/cache/apt/archives Steve -- Steve Greenland [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Please do not CC me on mail sent to this list; I subscribe to and read every list I post to.)
