advice on partitioning

[Derek Broughton]

Sam Tygier wrote:

> simplicity is a good thing.
> i just use one patition for / and one for swap (about 1.5gb for your ram
> size).
> 
> i dont understand why you would want to back up just the base system. the
> base system can be easily restored by doing an install (installs are easy
> once you have done a few). i only back up my /home/sam/ and my /etc (etc
> stores lots system wide configuration which i play with.) you may also
> want to back up /var if you keep anything in the (if you run a web server
> for example.)

We _all_ keep stuff in /var.  At the very least, the dpkg status is all
there - so that's what you need to rebuild your install base.  It commonly
has all your mail if you run your own servers.
-- 
derek