how much space does gentoo need?

carpman · Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2002 12:19 pm Post subject: how much space does gentoo need?

I have a space issue with Gentoo; just how much space does it need?

I have installed basic Gentoo install with X and fluxbox and couple of small apps, Dillo web browser, Gentoo file manager and it is using 1.2gig of my 1.4 gig / also have /home partition of 1.8gig
This of course is going to lead to problems when emerging, plus it seems a lot of space for basic install.

I have a spare partition of 1.5gig and would like to know how best to use it for gentoo setup and/or reducing / size, ie. should i set it be /var if so what best way to acheive this?

cheers

carpman · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 12:36 pm Post subject:

Ok let me re phrase it, if i create a partition /var/tmp what size should it be so portage will not run out of space?

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Moved from Installing Gentoo to OTG as this is a post-install question.

I thought I'd be helpful by checking my system. Unfortunately, I have /var/tmp under / which has 6.1G free.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo?

carpman · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 4:15 pm Post subject:

Thanks for moving, but thought it was in right place because if i was aware of /tmp/portage size issue i would have insured that / had more space when installing, as it is i now have to try and resize repartitions, which means converting from ext3 to ext2 and then back again once i have done it.

would 1gig be enough for /var/tmp/portage

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Here are a few threads covering partition sizes needed for compiling.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo?

arkane · l33t Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 918 Location: Phoenix, AZ

Yet another reason for LVM

That's been one of my most favourite side-effects of running it... I *knew* I'd be compiling alotta crap, so I made /var bigger, did the emerge, then I shrunk it afterwards. Of course the infamous /usr directory size (ie. not knowing how big it will be because it's always different everytime) is also easily remedied with this.

It's worth looking into... I know I sound like a Logical Volume Management zealot or something, but it has saved me ALOT of headache since I've installed it. It's nice for development, also. (just make a partition, do your stuff in it, blow it away later.. no worry about the whole 4 physical partition limit or rebooting between changes of partitions)

carpman · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 10:37 pm Post subject:

tell me more youLogical Volume Management zealot

arkane · l33t Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 918 Location: Phoenix, AZ

LOL

Well, there's some great reading at sistina.com's website:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO.html

The LVM Installation How-To I made (a while back admittedly)
This was almost impossible for me to find in the "Documentation, Tips & Tricks" forum just now...
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=1897

Basically, LVM is a feature you can add into the kernel that lets you set up one physical partition as an LVM partition (type 0x8e instead of type 83), add it into a Volume Group, and "virtually" split it up into seperate partitions inside of Linux. Theres no limitation that I have found.. well, at least within reason.

Instead of there being a single disk, what you have are "Logical Volumes". A Logical Volume is a LVM partition, that you can format, and do whatever with. Logical Volumes are sections of a larger thing called a "Volume Group". (Think of Logical Volumes as slices of pizza, and the Volume Group is the pizza) You can get full statistics about the volume group (or logical volume) on the fly with lvdisplay and vgdisplay.

Now, reducing and expanding is the greatest feature. As long as the partition isn't a system partition (mounted to /usr, or some other partition always in use) you can umount it, lvextend -L+100G /dev/volumegroup/logicalvolume, then resize the filesystem with the right tool. (resize2fs will resize ext2/3 filesystems, resizereiserfs will do reiserfs, there are others...) That example adds 100GB to the Logical Volume named localvolume that is in the Volume Group named volumegroup.

The only penalty is that you need to make an initrd everytime you make your kernel (and run the ramdisk feature in your kernel) with the command "lvmcreate_initrd". the /boot partition needs to be a normal physical partition, and the kernel/initrd stays there so that it can be read by the system. The kernel is booted, reads an initrd= line in your grub menu.lst, and loads that into memory, using that to get to your Volume Group (and in turn, Logical Volumes)

It's freedom, I'll tell ya that.
It gets better when you have more than one disk in your system... you can just extend your Volume Group with another drive on the fly. (Well, granted your interface allows it.. IDE isn't that good about hotswapping) You can reduce it also if you want to take a disk out for repair or something.
The links I gave you up top are where I learned from, and are really good. well, the sistina.com one is, at least