Re: Is /dev/shm needed?

[Jurgen Botz]

Alexander Viro wrote:
> On 16 Dec 2001, Robert Love wrote:
> > have lots of memory to spare, give it a try.  Mount /tmp or all of /var
> > in tmpfs.
> 
> What?  /var contains things like /var/spool/mail.  I _really_ doubt
> that mailboxes disappearing after reboot will make anyone happy.

The original impetus for separating /var from /usr was not that stuff
in /var is temporary, but that anything that the system has to write
to in the course of normal operation goes there... that was so that
/usr could be a filesystem that was shared by many machines (i.e.
NFS mount for diskless workstations, etc.)  /var is for data that is
"variable" from machine to machine, so that /usr can be "constant".

:j

-- 
Jürgen Botz                       | While differing widely in the various
[e-mail]                   | little bits we know, in our infinite
                                  | ignorance we are all equal. -Karl Popper