Hello, I’ve had EndeavourOS installed for a little under a week now. I’ve got a situation and I’m hoping some more experienced folks can help direct me. I have a second SSD in my laptop. I’ve created the folder, mounted it to the partition and edited the fstab file so it auto mounts using the UUID key upon bootup. This directory/partition is solely dedicated to video games (Only Steam for now, as I get Wine and Lutris configured I’ll be adding more game clients).
Here’s where I may/may not have an issue. I’d like to rename the directory but am not sure what all it’s going to entail. Is it as simple as:
Renaming the directory
Updating the fstab file with the new name
Repointing the Steam client to the new directory for installed games
Or is there something more involved that I’m not thinking of?
Apologies if this has been answered in the past, I looked through the Forum and couldn’t find the post if it had.
rename the directory where you had mounted the partiton
customize the mount point the in fstab so that it contains the new name
remount it
You may consider changing the rights of the directory (mount point) by chmod 000 /mountpoint after umounting and renaming.
That prevents from accidentially removing or changing the directory. Doing this would be fatal for the next boot, because booting hangs if the mount fails when the mount point is not there. It may also be a good idea to add the option nofail to the option list in fstab, as the content of your mounted partition is not vital for the system boot up, so you can boot up with the partition unplugged.
If the new file system has already been created, then it’s just a matter of moving the current Steam directory to the new location. On my system I have a dedicated partition mounted at /media/games. To get Steam setup (without doing anything in Steam’s settings), I did the following (make sure that your user account has full access to the new directory):
I moved $HOME/.local/share/Steam there (NOTE: this is the default location for Steam):
mv -v $HOME/.local/share/Steam /media/games/
After that, I created a symlink to the new Steam location:
cd $HOME/.local/share/
ln -sf /media/games/Steam/ .
I should have specified that I already have Steam pointed to this directory and have games installed. The way I have it set up now is “/drive/Steam Games” and I want it changed to “/drive/Games/” so I can have multiple directories within - “Steam Games”, “Ubisoft”, etc. My thought is if I create a directory “/drive/Steam Games/Steam Games” and move the games there, I can change then change the name and update the fstab file from “/drive/Steam Games” to “/drive/Games”. Then I’ll have all the games in “/drive/Games/Steam Games” and can then create the other directories at the same level as the “Steam Games” directory.
Thank you for the suggestion! I don’t have the nofail option in the fstab. Definitely something I’ll put in there. You mention using chmod to change directory permissions. Is this in case I try to delete it by mistake while making the necessary changes?
That is in case you unintentionally delete the directory at any time in the future and secondly to prevent that you write files into the directory when the external partition is not mounted. Most likely you don’t want files in a directory that you want to use as mount point. This way you get an error message with writing files to it.