What will be best for Ubuntu Partitions

Question

I generally create 5 partition for ubuntu 16.04 like (/boot,/opt,/home,swap,/), What if I install Ubuntu with only / partition,

Will /opt support nicely in future,

What will be the possible issue if I use only / Partition?

@karel, I don't agree this is a duplicate of the swap question you mentioned. However, nowadays we can have a swap file instead of a partition. It's even default since 17.10. So there's no real need for partitions. I just prefer to have separate / and /home partitions because then I can install a new Ubuntu version (not an upgrade) and format / while keeping my /home. — PerlDuck, Apr 19 '18 at 11:09
Except that the question is tagged with 16.04 As for is a /home partition necessary? maybe someone will close vote this question as a duplicate of another link for that topic such as What's your recommendation on drive partitioning schemes for a desktop and home server?. — karel, Apr 19 '18 at 11:10
True. Maybe the asker is curious about installing 18.04 which will be released next week. — PerlDuck, Apr 19 '18 at 11:15
Possible duplicate of What's your recommendation on drive partitioning schemes for a desktop and home server? — PerlDuck, Apr 19 '18 at 12:10
@PerlDuck It may be that I could use this information in future for Ubuntu 18.04 but actually I want to know about /opt Partition that if I don't create this then what will be the effect in future when software or some project will need more Space. — Vivek Sharma, Apr 19 '18 at 12:23

Takkat · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-19T12:57:28.560

With the default settings Ubuntu will use all disk space on installing. A separate /home or /opt partition will not be created. They are mere directories on the root partition. This is similar with other operating systems. Because of that it is recommended to backup all personal files before an install of a new OS.

Of course we can override these settings and use a manual partition scheme. We can then manually create as many partitions for as many mount points we want. This may also be of advantage when we have some mount points on a faster SSD and others on a huge conventional HDD. Or we may want to have some files on a different file system. But we do not need to do that for Ubuntu to operate as expected. It is more a matter of personal taste, comfort or believe.

We can also say to not format any existing partition on installing Ubuntu. By saying so we will not delete any directories /boot, /opt, or /home but keep them with all their content. So no data are lost. It is as if this directory was on an unformatted separate partition.

From a technical point of view there is no disadvantage to install all of Ubuntu in a single / root partiton. I do that often in a virtual machine.

If for any reason we decide to have a separate partition even on a separate drive rather than a directory we can always create it later (see e.g. here for HOME).

What will be best for Ubuntu Partitions

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