Subject: Re: /tmp, /var/tmp (was: Debian Quirks?)

From: [email-masked] (Bruce Perens)
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 96 20:54 PDT

> > > Several programs seems to prefer /tmp over /var/tmp.

Bruce:
> /tmp should probably be a symbolic link to var/tmp .

From: Pete Harlan <[email-masked]>
> I believe the way to do it is to have /tmp be a real directory in the
> root filesystem, and then mount a larger filesystem over it later.

That is neater in that it assures that there is always a valid /tmp
directory. However, Debian is designed so that the symbolic link will
work correctly as long as your /var/tmp doesn't come from NFS. See the
order of actions in /etc/init.d/boot .

Older Linux installation documents suggested you make about 7 disk partitions:
/ /usr /tmp /home, and so on. This facilitated mounting a filesystem on
/tmp. In my 1.1 installation notes, I just have the users make one filesystem
for simplicity's sake, and the resulting system does not seem to be any less
robust, going by the number of complaints. Of course the user can get fancy
once they know what they are doing.

	Thanks

	Bruce

---

From: Bill Wohler <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 10:28:14 -0700

Bruce Perens <[email-masked]> writes:
>  In my 1.1 installation notes, I just have the users make one filesystem

  Funny how the mind works.  This made me think of the following
  suggestion for the installation which will help those who like to
  make lots of partitions.

  Currently, for me, one of the longest parts of the base installation
  is creating the filesystems.  One filesystem at a time you have to:
  a) choose to create a filesystem; b) choose a particular filesystem;
  c) elect to check for bad blocks and then after the check is done;
  d) choose a mount point.  I only have four additional Linux
  filesystems other than /, but this gets old real fast, especially
  when battling with NT and bleeding edge hardware and doing this over
  and over and over....

  Ideally, it would be nice to have a form listing all the linux
  partitions.  Here, the mount point for each can be chosen.
  Prompting for the check for bad blocks would only happen once, and
  the filesystems would be created and mounted at one time so one
  could do other things which this is going on.

  If such a form isn't possible within the current constraints, a good
  compromise would be to allow the user to create all the filesystems
  *before popping back to the main menu*.  First the user should be
  asked whether to check for bad blocks for all filesystems created,
  then he should enter the mount points in turn, and then finally, all
  the filesystems should be created at once.

  The idea with all this installation stuff is to avoid having user
  actions interspersed with automatic actions that take a while.  This
  also goes for dpkg -GROEB --configure--all the packages that require
  user intervention for setup should be postponed until last.

  Thanks.

Bill Wohler <[email-masked]>   ph: +1-415-854-1857  fax: +1-415-854-3195
Say it with MIME.  Maintainer of comp.mail.mh and news.software.nn FAQs.
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 96 14:17 BST

Bill Wohler writes ("Making filesystems at installation time"):
...
>   user intervention for setup should be postponed until last.

That can't be done, because (a) dpkg doesn't know and (b) the
configure order is largely determined by the dependencies.

dpkg already unpacks packages first and then configures them all
later, and the unpack is (almost) entirely noninteractive.

Ian.