On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 13:07, David Nicol [email protected] wrote:
it seems to me that the same optimizations made for live CD running from the CD would apply. Writes to the OS portion are /never/ needed. Mounting with the -noatime switch should remove vestigal writes.
That depends, entirely, on what the "OS partition" is. If it includes the /var and /tmp hierarchies, you will be in pain not being able to write. Not to mention updates to software.
Keeping a separate filesystem for user data is neither a net win or loss. If you're going to do it, DO NOT do it because you think it makes you safer somehow. It doesn't.
I use noatime on some systems, but only to reduce disk i/o and thus power usage. If you're not already encrypting your filesystems, noatime can slightly protect you from someone being able to later determine how you were using your computer.