/home directory

bodrah · 2024-03-28 22:41:07

I have two places I can find my /home directory one on my partition with 800gb and one on my boot partition with less than 100mb

My system keeps screaming at me that my boot partition is almost out of space.

it seems like /home is a symbolic link? and despite it showing on my main partition it actually lives on my boot partition?

I just installed using archinstall yesterday and I'd like to know how I move my home directory off of my boot partition?

I'm sure you all will want to see some logs or what not to get a better idea of what is going on, what do I need to run so you can understand what is happening?

Trilby · 2024-03-28 22:48:40

Welcome to the forums. Please post the complete output from each of the following commands (and please see this link to put the output in code tags):

mount

cat /etc/fstab

df -h

Last edited by Trilby (2024-03-28 22:49:29)

bodrah · 2024-03-29 01:38:06

df -h
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=65916024k,nr_inodes=16479006,mode=755,inode64)
run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755,inode64)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,inode64)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate,memory_recursiveprot)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
bpf on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=37,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=5140)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,pagesize=2M)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,nr_inodes=1048576,inode64)
/dev/nvme0n1p3 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime)
/dev/md127 on /home/username/raid type ext4 (rw,relatime,stripe=256)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=13184860k,nr_inodes=3296215,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000,inode64)
portal on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse.portal (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=a15a4fe8-d90a-4bc6-a52f-fbbc4c92e64e       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/nvme0n1p1
UUID=1561-D549          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 2

# /dev/nvme0n1p3
UUID=7b516361-7ec6-4958-ad8e-2d09bec03821       /home           ext4            rw,relatime     0 2

/dev/md127 /home/username/raid  ext4    defaults    0    0
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
dev              63G     0   63G   0% /dev
run              63G  2.2M   63G   1% /run
/dev/nvme0n1p2   20G   19G   86M 100% /
tmpfs            63G  643M   63G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/nvme0n1p1  200M   72M  129M  36% /boot
tmpfs            63G  4.6M   63G   1% /tmp
/dev/nvme0n1p3  896G  481G  370G  57% /home
/dev/md127      7.3T  1.7T  5.2T  25% /home/username/raid
tmpfs            13G   42M   13G   1% /run/user/1000

Trilby · 2024-03-29 01:48:56

A couple things stand out there. First, your home directory *is* properly mounted.

First oddity: the home partition of your allegedly new system is holding a huge amount of data filling 480GB. Did you knowingly copy over a whole lot of data (e.g., from your ~7TB raid) after installing the system?

Second oddity: your root partition is full, is this what you are seeing errors about? In your first post you referred to the boot partition being full, these are different. Next, have you installed a lot of very large software? E.g., are you doing any 3d rendering, machine learning, working with cuda, etc? If not, we should see what's eating that space.

Last edited by Trilby (2024-03-29 16:44:23)

bodrah · 2024-03-29 13:55:18

First oddity: the home partition of your allegedly knew system is holding a huge amount of data filling 480GB. Did you knowingly copy over a whole lot of data (e.g., from your ~7TB raid) after installing the system?
yeah moved games from the raid to nvme that were backed up prior to installing arch this week.

Second oddity: your root partition is full, is this what you are seeing errors about? In your first post you referred to the boot partition being full, these are different. Next, have you installed a lot of very large software? E.g., are you doing any 3d rendering, machine learning, working with cuda, etc? If not, we should see what's eating that space.

no coding stuffs but I first noticed the problem when trying to install a flatpak it complained I didn't have enough space.
I exported a qdirstat list of the files but realized it was 44,000 lines of data and thats probably overkill I tried to upload it as a picture but won't let me.
/var has 9.4gb of stuffs and /usr has 8.3gb of stuffs. folder called flatpak in /var/lib has 7.4gb of data.

I installed gparted to try to resize the root and data partitions but for some reason it won't let me do anything. I even opened it from terminal using sudo but that wasn't needed because gparted won't even open without the sudo password.

Last edited by bodrah (2024-03-29 13:56:14)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-03-29 15:29:27

You will have to load a live ISO image to resize ext4.

Why do you have separate root, /home/, & /boot/ partitions? Just using a single root partition would make things much easier.

seth · 2024-03-29 15:55:34

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Parted - they also offer a live distro.

As a workaround, you can also make /var/lib/flatpak a bind mount to some directory in your home partition (eg. "/home/flatschpak")
Edit: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab#Bind_mount

Last edited by seth (2024-03-29 15:56:25)

bodrah · 2024-03-29 16:06:14

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

You will have to load a live ISO image to resize ext4.
Why do you have separate root, /home/, & /boot/ partitions? Just using a single root partition would make things much easier.

It was the default option.

bodrah · 2024-03-29 16:12:49

seth wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Parted - they also offer a live distro.
As a workaround, you can also make /var/lib/flatpak a bind mount to some directory in your home partition (eg. "/home/flatschpak")
Edit: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fstab#Bind_mount

So if I'm understanding the syntax correctly from that link to make a bind I would update fstab to have the below line?

/var/lib/flatpak /home/flatschpak none    defaults,bind 0   0

And it sounds like from what the command does it's similar to a symbolic link but it moves the files to the new location.

seth · 2024-03-29 16:17:55

Source => target

/home/flatschpak  /var/lib/flatpak none    defaults,bind 0   0

but before that you'd move all contents from /var/lib/flatpak into /home/flatschpak
/home/flatschpak will then hold the data and /var/lib/flatpak is kindasomewhat like a symlink there, but completely transparent to the rest of the system - as if /var/lib/flatpak was the mountpoint of yet another partition.
Mind you: the data will still exist only ONCE, deleting it from /var/lib/flatpak will likewise delete it from /home/flatschpak!

bodrah · 2024-03-29 18:22:22

seth wrote:

Source => target
/home/flatschpak  /var/lib/flatpak none    defaults,bind 0   0
but before that you'd move all contents from /var/lib/flatpak into /home/flatschpak
/home/flatschpak will then hold the data and /var/lib/flatpak is kindasomewhat like a symlink there, but completely transparent to the rest of the system - as if /var/lib/flatpak was the mountpoint of yet another partition.
Mind you: the data will still exist only ONCE, deleting it from /var/lib/flatpak will likewise delete it from /home/flatschpak!

Do I need to do anything with perms on the /home/flatschpak folder? i made the change and then no programs were really working. I reverted the change to the fstab file and everything seems to be fine still.

Also a big thank you to everyone that has given input already. I moved off of windows just around or over a year ago to arch linux because windows really had nothing left to teach me. Debian is fine but it offers less in the way of learning so I chose arch.

seth · 2024-03-29 18:27:57

The permissions of /home/flatschpak should match those of /var/lib/flatpak, nb. that just adding the fstab entry will not immediately bind the mount - you'd still have to eg. "sudo mount /var/lib/flatpak"

In doubt post the outputs of "ls -l /var/lib/flatpak" before and after the change (they should be absolutely equal) and elaborate on "no programs were really working" - how exactly did they fail?

bodrah · 2024-03-29 18:36:22

seth wrote:

The permissions of /home/flatschpak should match those of /var/lib/flatpak, nb. that just adding the fstab entry will not immediately bind the mount - you'd still have to eg. "sudo mount /var/lib/flatpak"
In doubt post the outputs of "ls -l /var/lib/flatpak" before and after the change (they should be absolutely equal) and elaborate on "no programs were really working" - how exactly did they fail?

ah I see I skipped both those steps.

sudo mount /var/lib/flatpak"

and matching perms.

they were telling me I didn't have permission.

I'll make those adjustments and reboot later on today thank you!

  GNU nano 7.2                                      /etc/fstab                                      Modified  
# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/nvme0n1p2
UUID=a15a4fe8-d90a-4bc6-a52f-fbbc4c92e64e       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/nvme0n1p1
UUID=1561-D549          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iochar>

# /dev/nvme0n1p3
UUID=7b516361-7ec6-4958-ad8e-2d09bec03821       /home           ext4            rw,relatime     0 2

/dev/md127 /home/username/raid  ext4    defaults    0    0
#/home/flatschpak  /var/lib/flatpak none    defaults,bind 0   0

Last edited by bodrah (2024-03-29 19:10:36)

bodrah · 2024-03-29 22:47:30

[username@x570 ~]$ ls -l /var/lib/flatpak
total 24"
drwxr-xr-x  8 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 app
drwxr-xr-x  3 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 appstream
drwxr-xr-x  4 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 exports
drwxr-xr-x  2 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 overrides
drwxr-xr-x  7 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 repo
drwxr-xr-x 23 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 runtime
[username@x570 ~]$ ls -l /home/username/flatschpak
total 24
drwxr-xr-x  8 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 app
drwxr-xr-x  3 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 appstream
drwxr-xr-x  4 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 exports
drwxr-xr-x  2 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 overrides
drwxr-xr-x  7 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 repo
drwxr-xr-x 23 username username 4096 Mar 29 13:08 runtime

Looks like the permissions match. In the previous post I posted my /etc/fstab file (with the bind commented out for now).

am I missing something there? ack next time I install with one partition.

Last edited by bodrah (2024-03-29 22:48:43)

seth · 2024-03-29 22:57:33

"ls -la", compare "." (ie. the directory itself)
I don't use flatpak, but it seems rather odd that directories in /var/lib/anything belong to "username" (which I assume is your user?), this works w/ the files in /var/lib/flatpak ?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-03-29 23:41:57

bodrah wrote:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
Why do you have separate root, /home/, & /boot/ partitions? Just using a single root partition would make things much easier.
It was the default option.

That seems like a silly default.

Perhaps add your experience to https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/issues/2438 — I would do it myself but my GitHub account is locked.

Trilby · 2024-03-30 00:00:24

No, what's silly is using an automated installer, and on top of that accepting all the default settings, if you know your intended use is far from typical.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-03-30 10:03:39

Well the recommendation in the official installation guide seems to be that a single root partition should be used unless there are specific reasons not to (the ESP being a special case for UEFI systems) so it's strange that the archinstall script doesn't follow this.

Trilby · 2024-03-30 12:51:03

Well that's new. It had, for decades, either given examples with a separate home or had not specific partitioning advice at all (just redirecting to the partitioning page which had examples with a separate home). This all seems to have changed only at the end of last year.

c00ter · 2024-03-30 13:13:37

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Well the recommendation in the official installation guide seems to be that a single root partition should be used unless there are specific reasons not to (the ESP being a special case for UEFI systems) so it's strange that the archinstall script doesn't follow this.

The Archinstall script follows the usual layout, however it does offer the user a separate /home if they desire (default).

There is *nothing* wrong with the script when used knowingly and judiciously.

My fstab as laid out by Archinstall (no separate /home selected during routine):

# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/sda2
UUID=b50290e6-561b-4010-92a3-aa96580e4062 / ext4 rw,relatime 0 1

# /dev/sda1
UUID=82EE-B782 /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 2

seth · 2024-03-30 15:50:58

The wiki history suggests there hasn't been a home partition suggested since early 2022 (and then the wikimedia database is broken and I can't go back in time)
Personally I use a single partition only on systems that are seriously short on space and you#re gonna regret hard barriers later.
Otherwise I'd always separate /home (because you want to keep that even if you ever ditch the OS) but that takes some premeditation about the split. Or LVM.

bodrah · 2024-03-31 16:06:50

To be perfectly honest this is why I use arch. I tend to mess up and break stuff and that's the idea. Learn through trial by fire. I ended up reinstalling arch without a separate home partition. I started with manjaro, then went to garuda. Now I'm on vanilla with the scripted installer, when I have a bit more free time I'll probably have a go with the command line install but I was trying to get my pc up quickly after nuking my previous install since my kids are over for the weekend and I didn't want to spend time rebuilding my os while they are over.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-03-28 22:41:07

/home directory

#2 2024-03-28 22:48:40

Re: /home directory

#3 2024-03-29 01:38:06

Re: /home directory

#4 2024-03-29 01:48:56

Re: /home directory

#5 2024-03-29 13:55:18

Re: /home directory

#6 2024-03-29 15:29:27

Re: /home directory

#7 2024-03-29 15:55:34

Re: /home directory

#8 2024-03-29 16:06:14

Re: /home directory

#9 2024-03-29 16:12:49

Re: /home directory

#10 2024-03-29 16:17:55

Re: /home directory

#11 2024-03-29 18:22:22

Re: /home directory

#12 2024-03-29 18:27:57

Re: /home directory

#13 2024-03-29 18:36:22

Re: /home directory

#14 2024-03-29 22:47:30

Re: /home directory

#15 2024-03-29 22:57:33

Re: /home directory

#16 2024-03-29 23:41:57

Re: /home directory

#17 2024-03-30 00:00:24

Re: /home directory

#18 2024-03-30 10:03:39

Re: /home directory

#19 2024-03-30 12:51:03

Re: /home directory

#20 2024-03-30 13:13:37

Re: /home directory

#21 2024-03-30 15:50:58

Re: /home directory

#22 2024-03-31 16:06:50

Re: /home directory

Board footer