On 24.11.18 22:41, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 24, 2018 at 02:40:31PM -0500, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 24, 2018 at 06:47:42PM +0100, Didier Kryn wrote:
> > >
> > >     In my last install, I still had /tmp and /var on separate partitions,
> > > but I'm questionning the validity of such a setup.
> >
> > It's useful to have /tmp on a separate partition in case some process
> > running amok fills it and ordinary shell commands that need temprary
> > files stop working.
>
> And it's even better if that partition is formatted as swap. You then mount
> /tmp as tmpfs (hey, lookie at the name!), and files there won't even hit the
> disk unless there's some memory pressure. With default value of
> /proc/sys/vm/swappiness being 60, the system won't sacrifice caching just to
> keep old crap in /tmp in memory and will swap them out eventually. But,
> during any compilation, gcc's temp files won't need to be written out if gcc
> doesn't manage to delete them within that 5 seconds window...

Hey, that could speed up big compiles. Sounds worth trying.

That leaves /var, which I've kept separate for three decades, to obviate
the risk of furious rates of logging fatally depleting /. OK, it takes
longer now, but the principle remains.

Growth of /tmp was never a problem, as removal of several day old tmp
files was/is a standard cronjob, at least after you've been bitten once.

Erik