alt Hacker NewsMy point is that you shouldn't have to do this!
I've already done this twice for this box. Its disk is half empty, and the used space is 75% compounding useless bloat:
- 50% of the used space are package sets I never asked for.
- The stuff I did ask for is somehow 2x larger than it needs to be, since they don't randomize binaries in place.
- If they'd actually follow their own filesystem hierarchy standards, and stop using /usr as a build target (very bad things will happen if a crash happens in the middle of that! Why are we making lots of small separate partitions again?!?) then I could just make /var big. Then I would not have to repartition yet again after they introduce /lib/lolz/3gib or whatever in 2027.
Alternatively, if they had a journalling filesystem or still supported soft updates, then I could have one big partition, which would solve it once and for all.
Anyway, I'd argue "take the lan offline, backup the router, repartition and restore" isn't a planned reasonable maintenance task for a router. The fact that its so obviously easily avoidable is really frustrating.
Alternatively, if they just had a "which sets to install?" config option for auto-update (like they do for the OS installer!) then I wouldn't have to do this.
Yeah it sucks when partitions that were sized 8-10 years ago are no longer adequate. I've hit the "/usr is too small to complete an upgrade" trap myself. When that happened I rejected the installer's partition suggestions and made /usr substantially larger (this is also necessary if you're going to be building large ports, which also happens under /usr).
So far that has worked for me.
Some people would also argue that using an 8 year old device as a critical path in your LAN is a risk in itself. Taking routers down to do upgrades is pretty common in the enterprise IT world.