On a similar note: just the other day I was thinking about how the Unixy systems I used 20+ years ago used to nudge/push you toward creating several actual partitions during installation. Maybe /, /usr, swap… maybe one or two more? IIRC, I think some of the BSDs, at least, maybe still do? Always seemed weird and suboptimal to me for most installations, but I remember being told by graybeards at the time that it was the Right Way.
>>glhayn+(OP)
still makes sense to prevent overruns right? IE /home/ cant drop the whole system just cause you torrented too many debian ISOs and blew out your disk.
same for /var/ or wherever you store your DB tables like MySQL.
>>calvin+i
Ah, yeah, that makes sense, thanks. My experience as "sysadmin" has largely been from the standpoint of personal systems for which that has mostly not been a big concern for me.
>>calvin+i
The inverse is also true - cannot download an 60Gb game due to partition size being too small even if there is cumulative free space available.
>>glhayn+(OP)
I think that is still the recommended way? The GNU/Linux Debian installer definitely does it by default. Even MS Windows does now-a-days.
>>glhayn+(OP)
I have always made /home a separate partition.
This makes it so much easier to reinstall and/or wipe out a distro and install a new one. All of my files are left undisturbed.