How should you partition your Unix/Linux system?

Once upon a time there was a HOWTO that covered this though I haven't seen it in a number of years. Since Red Hat and others decided that the entire world needed to be in /usr/bin a lot of folks don't seem to even bother to do anything but dump the whole Linux directory tree in a single filesystem. Heck, I found that one recent distribution doesn't even allow you to specify /usr as a separate mount point; even when doing an "expert" partitioning during the installation. (To be fair, it is a bit easier when you go into single user mode to not have to search out and mount /usr separately to have gain access to your repair tools. Even a stone ax like "ed" is in /usr/bin nowadays.) As a result, lately, on laptops I've been dumping just about everything into "/", carving out a 2nd partition for /home and, maybe, a 3rd for /var. On desktops and servers where I have multiple disks, my goal is to keep OS-related and non-OS-related files separated. I definitely create separate filesystems for /home, /usr/local, and create mount points /opt/app and /var/app for filesystems that hold application binaries and their data. Those are areas I want to protect -- say, from an upgrade should it go awry -- by unmounting them prior to any upgrade and remounting them once that process is finished.

Quoting:Once upon a time there was a HOWTO that covered this though I haven't seen it in a number of years.

Perhaps the 'Linux Partitioning mini-FAQ' found at http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Linux/FAQs/partition.html ?? Even if not the selfsame HOWTO, this might still be a helpful partitioning review.