How can I do more reasonable detailed partitioning?

General system Newbie
1

How can I do more reasonable detailed partitioning? I’m installing a new eos, I’m using a btrfs system, I’m wondering if there is a better and more detailed partitioning scheme, I’m planning to use a 500g ssd

2

The subvolume layout is all set up when selecting btrfs. I’m not sure what would be more reasonable detailed partitioning.

This is the layout you get with erase disc, swap file and btrfs

[ricklinux@eos-tuff ~]$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1        8:1    0  1000M  0 part /boot/efi
└─sda2        8:2    0 464.8G  0 part /var/log
                                      /var/cache
                                      /swap
                                      /home
                                      /

It is ready to be used with btrfs-assitant and snapper or timeshift.

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3

Don’t I need to set the capacity of / and /home directories separately?

4

If you mean / and /home/ on separate partitions, that is possible within the installer.

5

I am just installing a new system, I am using btrfs system, so I want to partition in detail, I am going to partition as follows.
/, /home, /var, /swap，/efi How to distribute the capacity between them?

6

You’ll have to use the manual partition set up and choose btrfs.

Edit: you can set it up how you want if you know what you are doing.

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7

Beware for manual partition scheme, for me is absolutely useless on desktops and for daily tasks… for ssd you only need to check -noatime option under fstab for limit overhead writings.
More useful way is adopting LVM because it allow you to dynamic expand or resize partitions over one or more physical disk and you can manage snapshot of volumes IMHO much better than brtfs can do, only “bad” this is not done “automagically” than btrfs can do, you need to learn and understand LVM before use… good luck!

8

I know what I’m doing, I used to partition my system the default way, but now I want to experience manual partitioning, as I said before, I’m going to /, /home, /var, /swap and efi, but I don’t know how much space I should allocate to them, especially the /var and / directories

9

What is the default way?

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10

Automatic system partitioning

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11

Well the automatic partitioning setup on every distro is different especially when it comes to btrfs. I’m not the expert. I only gave you the output of how it sets it up with automatic partitioning with the installer.

Example:

nvme0n1     259:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0  1000M  0 part /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0 464.8G  0 part /var/log
                                      /var/cache
                                      /swap
                                      /home
                                      /

It is my understanding it’s not recommended to create a separate /home. Swap is a swap file! Obviously /efi is required if your system is UEFI. If you want a separate /home you would have to use manual partitioning. I will leave this for the expert to advise you. Myself I am using the standard install erase disk swap file with btrfs and it sets it up this way as in my example. I am using btrfs-assistant and snapper-support but you can set that up however you want also. Before i was just using btrfs-assistant with snapper and snap-pac. You could also use timeshift if so desired.

12

Thank you for your answer, I will take a closer look.

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13

Oh, don’t forget to read about BTRFS on Arch Wiki
And make virtual machine allow you to do any kind of experiments when understanding it.
@discobot quote

14

:left_speech_bubble: The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. — Lao Tzu

15

I read and read and read it…and still don’t understand. :rofl:

16

My current partition is going to look like this: /boot/efi, /, /home, /var, /swap, and I was wondering if my /home could be set smaller if I rarely store movies, pictures, audio? Or do I have movies, videos, pictures, audio available attached to a separate hard drive.

17

Partition scheme in Linux can be s source of worry in the beginning. After a while, you will not give it a second thought and install like a pro.

People will generally be hesitant giving advice, because partition scheme is very much down to personal preferences.

If you don’t use /home much for storing, you should evaluate if making it a separate partition at all makes sense for you.

Personally, i have all my data on other drives. A /home partition is just an extra step that is unneeded for me. The important config files are quickly backed up. In the case of a potential reinstall, starting over with a clean /home is often an advantage, as you don’t carry with you potential problems, like mis-configurations and such, from the previous install.

With zram, you don’t have to worry about a swap partition at all, you could check it out.

18

Thanks for your reply, the /home directory for me is just to store some personal data files like photos, videos, etc. I have nas to store them. I hope the /home separate partition is to be a bit more secure, I don’t know if I’m right or wrong in this idea?

19

Can’t zram use hibernation? If not I don’t think it’s for me, but it looks really nice.

20

You NAS is probably more “secure”, especially when you are a beginner. Usually people experiment a lot with Linux in the beginning. That increases the risk of a major screw-up and loss of data.

Giving more concrete advice is not possible, because it is down to your use case and personal preference.

If you sync your data between /home and you NAS, you are doubly secure.