Sysinstall & Disklabel defaults.
My first FreeBSD install was 2.2.5_RELEASE onto an Olivetti 486SX2 with 8MB of RAM. The Olivetti has been sitting unused in my attic for years, whereas I seem to have lost my original 2.2.5_RELEASE Cd's. Both these fact sadden me somewhat. But I still remember the fun I had. Owing to my overwhelming need to actually understand what's going on I must have reinstalled it a dozen times. Looking stuff up - Alta-vista, I believe, being the search engine of choice at the time - when I failed to understand. Having mainly worked with DOS/Windows and Novell operating systems there was a lot I really couldn't understand.
One of the first things which gave me a problem was the setup of the disks. I still get confused with the partitioning/slicing/labelling nomenclature. But at least I have a fundamental understanding of why it all seems to fly in the face of excepted convention. And more importantly I know the why the different filesystems are different filesystems. Although it seems that many people don't. Which is why I'm always having to deal with machines which fly in the face of best-practise. Logs in non-standard locations (with not a symlink in sight) - because /var is too small - is my personal favourite.
The fault lies, in my opinion, with the Auto Defaults option in sysinstall's Disklabel Editor. In almost all circumstances what this gives you is wrong. Consider the following:
Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/da0s1a 247 54 173 24% / /dev/da0s1d 247 0 227 0% /var /dev/da0s1e 247 0 227 0% /tmp /dev/da0s1f 32148 833 28743 3% /usr
This is the df output from a fully configured running server for which I'm responsible. And here is another one:
Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/amrd0s1a 247 54 173 24% / /dev/amrd0s1d 247 0 227 0% /var /dev/amrd0s1e 247 0 227 0% /tmp /dev/amrd0s1f 65095 922 58965 2% /usr
At this point I'm someone will tell me that I shouldn't have used the auto-defaults. Well, I didn't. Somebody else setup these boxes, by rote, doing it the same way he's always setup a FreeBSD box. Next someone will be telling me to educate this person. Well, it just so happens that this particular person does not care to be educated - besides "they would have made it so that the defaults would be suitable for most things" is the usual response - so the battle is lost before it's begin.
My opinion is that there should be a change. I'm perfectly aware that having an opinion on this matter is going to cause a bikeshed and copious amounts of abuse. But hey-ho... As I see it there are two options.
- Change the default size of /var and /tmp
- By default make a single large filesystem
Although, as yet, I have no I idea which I'd prefer. But I'd definitely prefer a change.