About my disk and /home

[QuijoteLibre]

Following up on what I mentioned in this thread, now that the system is installed, I would like to analyze and understand how the system was installed before continuing.

About the disk configuration

I did a straightforward installation, since I wanted something simple with Calamares, but I’m surprised by how the disks turned out, and I’m not sure if I did something wrong.

Disk partitions and volumes

$ lsblk -o name,type,size,PTTYPE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT

NAME TYPE SIZE PTTYPE FSTYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda disk 4,5T gpt
└─sda1 part 4,5T gpt exfat /run/media/asim/Wd-Elements
nvme0n1 disk 476,9G gpt
├─nvme0n1p1 part 2G gpt vfat /efi
└─nvme0n1p2 part 474,9G gpt crypto_LUKS
└─luks-8ae62143-bd48-4652-beae-61d9e211417f crypt 474,9G btrfs /var/log

$ sudo btrfs subvolume list /var/log

ID 256 gen 149 top level 5 path @
ID 257 gen 150 top level 5 path @home
ID 258 gen 113 top level 5 path @cache
ID 259 gen 150 top level 5 path @log
ID 260 gen 29 top level 5 path @swap
ID 261 gen 24 top level 256 path @/var/lib/portables
ID 262 gen 24 top level 256 path @/var/lib/machines

The questions that arise for me are:

1. Is mounting in /var/log logical? The truth is that I expected it to be in /, and maybe I’m talking nonsense.
2. I’m missing a volume for snapshots.
3. Do I need to correct something? Where can I read about how to do what needs to be done?

About home.

I think the idea of protecting data is important; it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gotten into trouble over it.

@How to run a stress-free EndeavourOS

Don’t re-use /home - People will often tell you to have a separate partition for /home. IMO, this is terrible advice. You should never share /home between distros. Even with the same distro, it typically doesn’t make sense to re-use it. If there is some problem that causes you to reinstall, the issue is just as likely to be in /home as outside of it. If you want to preserve or share your personal data, instead, create a partition or subvolume that contains your user data and then mount or symlink the data to ~/Documents, ~/Videos, ~/Picture, etc.

Until now, my system, which is probably less efficient, has been based on organizing my /home directory in a similar way to what Karl Voit suggests in this post.

From there, I modify the .config/user-dirs.dirs file and update with xdg-user-dirs-update.

This works quite well, although there are always programs that don’t use user-dirs.locale properly and create some or don’t conform to the standard and recreate some folders that force me to redirect.

The weak point is that sometimes, for fear of losing things, I duplicate copies, and this is very inefficient in terms of space. To copy a script with rsync from those folders, I manage. Any suggestions for improving my backup system are welcome. About my disk and /home.

Best regards.

[Schlaefer]

@QuijoteLibre

Is mounting in /var/log logical? The truth is that I expected it to be in /, and maybe I’m talking nonsense.

lsblk in that format shows one mount point only, in this case @log mounted at /var/log. But of course the others are mounted too (@ at /, @home at /home etc). Just run lsblk without arguments and it shows all.

[QuijoteLibre]

@Schlaefer

lsblk in that format shows one mount point only, in this case @log mounted at /var/log. But of course the others are mounted too (@ at /, @home at /home etc). Just run lsblk without arguments and it shows all.

My apologies for the oversight; it did not occur to me to look at /etc/fstab.

[dalto]

@QuijoteLibre

I’m missing a volume for snapshots.

You definitely don’t need one and you probably don’t want one. Is there a reason you think you need one?

[QuijoteLibre]

@dalto

You definitely don’t need one and you probably don’t want one. Is there a reason you think you need one?

It’s just that I’m not used to btrfs, and I’ve seen it mentioned a lot in various guides. But if it’s not necessary, then all the better. It’s just a matter of studying, and that’s not a problem.