default partition scheme without /home - why ?

[Les Mikesell]

Brendan Conoboy wrote:
> Benjamin Kreuter wrote:
>> Perhaps we could create a new option, like "Recommended layout for 
>> desktops," that uses a reasonable estimate of what the partition 
>> layout should be.  If a user wants to change that, they can (and they 
>> can always "review and modify" the partition layout), and they can 
>> always resize later if they need to.  New users are often unsure of 
>> what the partition layout is, and unfortunately, they often fail to 
>> read the install guide.
> 
> People can always resize / later and add a /home.  Every system needs a 
> / but not every system needs a /home.  Is there a strong technical 
> reason for a default /home?  Would that same reason also apply toward a 
> separate /usr and /var and /var/tmp?  Please, lets not get nostalgic for 
> SunOS 4 partitioning!

Most partitioning decisions are about controlling the sizes separately 
or when you want to put different operations like the logging or 
database files in /var and user files in /home on different physical 
drives to eliminate head contention.  You might want to separate both of 
those from the OS files and swap, but using different partitions on the 
same drive (and probably LVM) just makes the seeks take longer.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com