Fedora Workstation: How much space needed for root partition (/) ? [closed]

asked 2014-01-09 20:52:54 -0600

florian
11133 ●77 ●349 ●331

updated 2018-04-26 14:25:29 -0600

I am installing Fedora, and I will have a separate partition for / and /home. How much space would you recommend for the root (/) partition? I'm installing Fedora Workstation with GNOME and I will include all standard developer, office, and internet software packages.

( I won't have any games installed. Is 15 GB enough? Do I need 25GB, or even more? The installer suggested to have 51 GB (out of my 250 GB SSD). I think that's too much and I'd rather decrease / and increase /home. )

What's your thought?

EDIT: This question was related to Fedora 20 initially but since there seems to an interest in the question, I try to keep it up-to-date for current releases of Fedora Workstation featuring Gnome Desktop.

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Closed for the following reason the question is answered, right answer was accepted by hhlp
close date 2018-09-25 12:36:26.810438

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There is now an answer below summarizing all answers given here.

florian ( 2015-01-27 07:13:48 -0600 )edit

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answered 2016-03-20 05:15:49 -0600

deadrat

2382 ●31 ●75 ●98 http://www.deadrat.in/

updated 2016-03-20 05:27:41 -0600

It completely depends on the use case. Since most of the latest machines come with >250 GB HDD space, I suggest the below recommendations assuming that you have enough space for other partitions. ( Since most of users will go for a separate /home partition, we don't have to consider about the documents and other files such as media files when creating / partition. )

It goes without saying that If you have a separate /home partition, you don't have to bother about backing up data before every installing a different distro. (But keep in mind that the config files of one distro may not be recognized properly by another distribution.) ( Edit: Though /home partition can be preserved between installs, it is always recommended to take a back up. )

If you intend to keep this installation for at least a few years and if you will be installing quite a few packages such as multimedia and office software, I recommend that you go for something more than 30 GB. After a fresh install, you may find that there is quite a space left in your root partition, but you will realize that these are being used up after a couple of months. After using it for two years and after two upgrades ( 21 to 22 and then to 23 ), my / partition has used up 24 GB. If one has to install a quite a few packages like LibreCAD and blender, I suggest to assign it a 30 GB so that you don't have to re size it after few new package installation and upgrades.
If your usage is most likely be limited to accessing internet and editing documents, I really do not see a requirement for allocating huge space for root partition. In such cases 10 or 12 GB of / partition can suffice. In my netbook (that I had) the / partition was 12 GB and it ran Fedora XFCE spin. I had libreoffice, gnuzilla, chromium, midori and (google-chrome) installed in that. I didn't have need for any other applications and even after a couple of applications, I had few GB space left.
If you are feeling adventurous and if you keep on re-installing the Operating system, then go for a 20 GB / partition. This could allow you to try installing few packages on that distro as if you go for the bare minimum requirement, you may run into issues if you try to install some heavy packages with high number of dependencies.

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answered 2014-01-10 06:47:44 -0600

muffin
264 ●5 ●7 ●13

15 or 20GB should suffice, i currently use about 10.2GB in my root, I've upgraded my fedora twice (F18->F19 and then F19-F20) installed plenty of software etc.

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Please update your answer, with newer releases better suggestion is 20 or 25GB, 15GB is really on low side. As soon as you start adding software packages with 15GB root partition you run out of space really soon..

valentt ( 2016-01-31 11:31:16 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-01-10 08:19:06 -0600

florian
11133 ●77 ●349 ●331

updated 2018-09-25 12:21:26 -0600

Summary of the answers given so far (and other sources):

15-20 GB (@muffin )
20 GB (myself) - it used to be 20GB, I figured I need 30GB these days.
16 GB (http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm...),
20 GB (Installation Guide F23, https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...),
10-14 GB (User @alfC )
20-25 GB (user @valentt & user @gobigobi66 )
50 GB (user @fcomida )
20 GB minimum, better 60-70 GB (user @rj )

My opinion: For me, 15 GB is sufficient space for the root partition but in order to have some spare space and feel really comfortable I sized it 20 GB. If you are not short of space (for example because of a small SSD), consider sizing it 25GB.

Edit: Since I am not using a dedicated /swap partition anymore but a swapfile on the root file system (more flexibility), I added the size of swapfile(s) to my slash root. (e.g. 20GB + 4 GB)

Edit 2: If you start using flatpaks, you may need a few extra GB of space. The apps are relatively small, but they all need certain runtimes, and you can easily have 4GB of runtimes installed in /var/lib/flatpak.

Edit 3: I have installed a fresh Fedora 29 and the virgin system without much additional software occupies only 7 GB.

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I used 15GB for Fedora 22 and I regret it, not I'm always having low disk space messages. At least 20-25GB to be safe.

valentt ( 2016-01-30 14:18:13 -0600 )edit

1

I agree, 15 is rather on the lower end of what was suggested here. It all depends on what you want to install on top of the "regular" desktop workstation. Stuff like Latex, games, JDK IDE, ... can be intense. Meaning, you can be totally fine with 15 GB (I only have 9GB out of 18 occupied) but yes, 15, 18, or even 20 GB may be too small but for most users it will be sufficient.

florian ( 2016-01-30 20:42:00 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-01-10 12:51:49 -0600

alfC
924 ●46 ●75 ●102

updated 2018-09-25 12:01:16 -0600

I have a fresh install of Fedora 20, it uses 8.1GB.

Big packages are Gnome, Evolution, Firefox, Thunderbird, TeXLive Full, GCC, Open Office.

Update: I have Fedora 21 it uses 13.7GB including the above packages plus Mathematica.

Update 2: I have had a heavily used Fedora 22 for more than one year, and it now uses 27GB, /usr -> 20GB, /var -> 6.8GB (in which /usr/local/Wolfram -> 7GB, /usr/share/texlive -> 2GB, /var/log/journal -> 4.4GB and /var/cache/PackageKit -> 1.8GB ).

Update 3: Fedora 28, after 6 months of heavy use / (no /home) takes 44GB , after running pkcon refresh force: 36GB. after running journalctl --vacuum-size=500M: 32GB. Some nuggets: of that Mathematica takes 10.3GB and TeX 2.8GB (fonts alone 1.8GB), flatpack 1.5GB.

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That is only a fresh install, no software so he'll need more space for it

RealPlayerCraft ( 2016-03-14 11:26:50 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-01-10 01:03:31 -0600

Charles Wang

76 ●10 ●13 ●20

It is enough. I used only 10-20GB in root(/).

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You can always adjust the size of partitions later if needed.

K7AAY ( 2014-01-10 12:56:40 -0600 )edit

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answered 2016-03-17 12:03:15 -0600

gobigobi66

440 ●11 ●22 ●33

I have plenty of space on my hdd, so I went with the 50GB the installer had suggested.

After using my Fedora 23 a bit and installing additional packages, I still have only 9.5 GB occupied. I think 20-25 GB would be sufficient.

Next time I have to reinstall Fedora, I will (re)size / to 25GB. That's more than enough for my needs.

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answered 2016-01-31 09:29:53 -0600

fcomida

3485 ●5 ●117 ●76

go for 50GB or even more, sooner or later you'll discover you are running out of space. Modern HD have plenty of space.

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answered 2016-04-13 18:44:38 -0600

libertace
1 ●1

updated 2016-04-15 13:01:27 -0600

florian
11133 ●77 ●349 ●331

I'm using the following sizes for partitions:

/ aka root 30GB where 10GB are used, my next install will use 20GB
/opt have 5GB, without fedora-utils you will never use the full space of 10GB
/var needs more space and have 8GB by 3.1GB used
/usr have 10GB and 6.8GB used, will be by my next install 15GB
/tmp have 550MB and 45MB used

running a Linux without proper partitions will cause a unstable system!

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What's this? All separate partitions? BTRFS?

gobigobi66 ( 2016-04-19 21:31:44 -0600 )edit

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answered 2016-04-18 00:01:21 -0600

rajiv
11 ●1 ●2 ●5

updated 2016-04-18 00:03:01 -0600

I think if you have 250 gb HDD then its fine for you to create a / partition which takes 30% of the total HDD space. This means that 75 gb in case of you. I have given 60 gb for / partition out of my 160 gd HDD in fedora23. I have suggested this much of space for / partition because i think if your / partition have enough space then there would not be any problems in installing and checking different softwares. Because sometimes we need to check many things in our operating system. The minimum space i suggest for / partition must be at least 20gb

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answered 2014-01-10 15:22:46 -0600

deusdara

1048 ●1 ●15 ●22

Hi

A root partition (3.0 GB - 5.0 GB) This is where "/" (the root directory) is located. In this setup, all files (except those stored in /boot) are on the root partition. A 3.0 GB partition allows you to install a minimal installation, while a 5.0 GB root partition lets you perform a full installation, choosing all package groups.

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Installation_Guide/s2-diskpartrecommend-x86.html

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Hi, I have now installed Fedora20 and not yet set up the system entirely but I can already say that 5GB would not be enough for my root partition using a "full" Fedora with Gnome, Evolution, Firefox, Texlive, Libreoffice, Virtualbox. It might be enough for a minimal system though. Your link refers to Fedora 16. The installation guide for newest F20 recommends at least 20 GB (Chapter 9.14.5).

florian ( 2014-01-11 00:33:16 -0600 )edit

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Fedora Workstation: How much space needed for root partition (/) ? [closed]

Closed for the following reason the question is answered, right answer was accepted by hhlp
close date 2018-09-25 12:36:26.810438

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Fedora Workstation: How much space needed for root partition (/) ? [closed]

Closed for the following reason the question is answered, right answer was accepted by hhlp
close date 2018-09-25 12:36:26.810438