[This is not my first attempt at getting an answer to this problem – I’ve been wrestling with this and a couple of other installation problems for about a month (!) now.]
After several reinstalls of Manjaro-Xfce I’ve been unable to configure partitions for a minimum number of directories using one SSD:
My resulting directory is a mess, like this:
/run/media/chas/home/chas/
for the partition that I wish simply said /Home, and
/home/chas/
for the root partition (sda2) where Manjaro is installed I would like to see just / or /root.
The Manjaro User Guide is good in many ways but it does not adequately cover installation with /root /home EFI partitioning.
Is there a tutorial that will show me how to get what I want?
Phew… There are countless tutorials on the internet about it, and they all show more or less the same thing. Maybe start by saying what the problem is and what you tried or at what stage did you stuck?
Normally, you can choose the root and home partition by setting the mount point / for the root partition and /home for home partition at the installation. But that would be manual partitioning rather than automatic.
Doubtless I have seen only a small number of the available tutorials out there (if your “Phew” is any indication of how many exist). My problem is, the process(es) I’ve been following (which I believe follow the given instructions) are not doing what I want: OS and related files under "/', and data and everything else under “/Home”.
Here’s my current partition table:
[deleted]
results of sudo parted:
[sudo] password for chas:
Model: ATA SanDisk SSD PLUS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
3 1049kB 347MB 346MB fat32 boot, esp
2 347MB 428GB 427GB ext4 root
1 428GB 2000GB 1573GB ext4
Model: WD easystore 2648 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 2000GB 2000GB ext4 easystore
[chas@chas-pc ~]$
And that yields
/run/media/chas/home/chas/
as my home directory and
/home/chas/
as my root directory, which is what I would expect for the Home directory, not ROOT.
Part of my problem is, when I select Home for sda1 it ends up “run/meda/chas/home.” Clearly part of the problem which has to do with automounting, but I have so far been unable to figure that out correctly.
And how does one stop the “/” designation from showing in directory listings (Thunar in my case) as “/home/chas/”?
And for that matter, what does it take to drop the user name for a computer which has only one user who knows who he is and what his name is? If I could get rid of the user name that would be at least a step closer to my desired end.
Yes, but the directory structure may be messed up. You’ve been using that partition but also the /home directory on the / partition.
If I were you I’d make a new directory in /run/media/chas/home/chas and copy everything from /home/chas to there. You can sort out what goes where and which version is newest later.
Make sure you have a working live USB, then fix /etc/fstab and reboot. Once you’ve checked it works and you have all your data, you can boot the live USB mount ROOT (only ROOT) and delete the contents of /home/chas. Be careful.
You have too many entries for home in /etc/fstab and you used a non-existent label in all of them.
If you’re asking how the entries got there, I assume you put them there. If not, then
The Linux filesystem layout is not organized to have “data and everything else” under /home
Because /home is only where personal data for the user is stored, everything else have their own defined directories…
This /run directory is the wrong directory to mount anything yourself, especially if it is supposed to be permanent.
Can you provide the complete (uncut) output of:
sudo fdisk -x /dev/sda
So we can check the GUID’s also of the partitions, and if you are using MBR or GPT… Easiest is to pipe the output to a temporary file and paste the contents of it here…
How did you endup like that?
Anyhow the first two partitions have a GUID for a standard Linux filesystem, and the 3rd for ESP, so nothing wrong there i could notice except the order when you look at start/end sectors…
And by closer inspection of those start/end numbers, it looks like you have holes/parts that are not used or skipped…
BIG parts even…
Technically, your system has at least two: chas and root. The latter exists on all Linux systems, you can’t get rid of that one.
And i don’t mention services running with their own respective users…
At least, i can tell those Home declarations are not done (correctly) during the installation, since the installer uses UUIDs.
Considering the labels on your partitions, and how you end up with your “home” in /run/media/<user>, which is the default folder for mounting undeclared partitions, my guess is, at the manual partitioning during the installation, you try to declare mounts using the Label field instead of the Mount field.
I don’t know. That fdisk results order is reversed from the way the partitions appear in gparted. I have re-installed Manjaro-Xfce four times (five installations) and I believe they have always ended up like this.
I’ve been studying this and I don’t understand – the beginning number for /dev/sda3 (which is the first partition on the disk) extends naturally to the final number for /dev/sda1 without a gap. There is a small (2.51 MB) unallocated partition and the end of the disk, but other than that the only thing I can see is that the first partition (sda3) starts at 2048. Is that what you are referring to? (I did not intentionally leave a beginning gap when making the partition.)
With respect to the gaps: My mistake my eyes looked at wrong columns
That is normal, because the partition table needs space also on the disk
If gparted causes that layout, i suggest you to stop using gparted…
I’m guessing you are manually doing your partitioning right? (Because this is the first time in my life I’ve seen such a reversed order being generated)
Next time when manually partitioning:
Use fdisk.
Start with creating a fresh new empty GPT partition table.
Write the changes to disk and reboot. (This is important!)
Add the EFI partition as 1st partition, using space from the start of the disk which is the default.
Select the partition type as “EFI System”. (GUID / Type-UUID = C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B)
Add your / partition as 2nd partition, using space starting from the end of the EFI partition which is the default.
Select the partition type as “Linux root (x86-64)”. (GUID / Type-UUID = 4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709)
Add a swap partition if you want one which is recommended but not required.
Select the partition type as “Linux swap”. (GUID / Type-UUID = 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F)
Add your /home if you want a separate partition for it.
Select the partition type as “Linux home”. (GUID / Type-UUID = 933AC7E1-2EB4-4F13-B844-0E14E2AEF915)
Write the changes to disk and reboot again.
After the above the partitions should be in correct order and have proper types, without gaps between them.
You are now able to format the partitions:
The EFI partition should be formatted as a FAT32 filesystem (commonly referred to as vfat)
The swap partition should not be formatted because it does not hold any filesystem. (Swap uses RAW data)
The other partitions can be formatted as any Linux filesystem you want.
When installing use:
The 2nd partition you had set as partition type “Linux root (x86-64)” as the / Partition to install your Linux in.
The EFI partition should be mounted as /efi (or like some do as /boot/efi when using grub)
