on mandrake 9.x at least - /var doesn't get clobbered when re-installing.

Jason Dodson wrote:

> The idea being that you generally don't have a filesystem "defragger". A
> unix filesystem is different then that of, say Windows.
>
> User tools, system libraries and such will never really change. If they
> do, it SHOULDNT be that often. So they go into a part of the
> filesystem/disk that is optimized (or should be) for this kind of
> operation. And with that, lots or creating/deleting/writing files can
> really affect your file system performance.
>
> /var is part of the filesystem (and generally coordinated the same on
> the disk) that is meant for heavy IO. On bigger servers, this is where
> you would have your most speedy, high-end disk. When it is part of the
> same physical disk as the rest of the system, it at least is the only
> place that should ever have fragmentation... and with that, the only
> place that fragmentation is maintained... So it is quick and efficient.
>
> /tmp is usually a symlink to /var/tmp. Also, just being under /var
> doesn't imply that it is free for the world to grab at. Mailboxes under
> /var/spool/mail for instance only allow the owner of the mailbox and
> mail to access them. System logs under /var/log are only readable by root.
>
> Anyway, like Helen said, it probably really doesn't matter :|
>
> Jason
>

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