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Old 16th October 2009
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
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Greg,

There are values to having a partitioning schema. Typically, these are:
  • Security: nodev, nosuid, read-only, or other filesystem mounting options
  • Damage containment: filesystem problems, such as filesystem full or filesystem corrupt -- might allow unaffected applications to continue.
Most new-to-Unix-like-systems admins spend a great deal of time attempting to perfect their filesystem configurations. This is usually a waste of time; every situation is unique to the OS and its particular usage. As ocicat mentioned, I recommend new admins start with a single filesystem until their configurations stabilize. I even recommend that for experienced admins who are provisioning new systems.

I have systems with many partitions, but I also have a personal laptop with a single large partition, less some swap space. On that laptop, the benefits of partitioning are not outweighed by the flexibility I require for my varying application usage on that platform.
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