installin btrfs problem

[Jan U]

Dear friends,

I am comming with little trouble which I have spent hours already on and cant figure out what happened.

Topic is installing btrfs with subvolumes. I did two same (but apparently not same) instalations and I cant figure out where I did the difference. Please see the screenshots attached, I cant figure out how i did install where nvme0n1p2 is mounted on / as well as on /home. The video tutorial author has the same result. I tried 4 times afterwards and cant get to the same result. I am wondering why.

1st install
janul@odri:~$ lsblk -a
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 7:0 0 0B 0 loop
loop1 7:1 0 0B 0 loop
loop2 7:2 0 0B 0 loop
loop3 7:3 0 0B 0 loop
loop4 7:4 0 0B 0 loop
loop5 7:5 0 0B 0 loop
loop6 7:6 0 0B 0 loop
loop7 7:7 0 0B 0 loop
zram0 253:0 0 7.7G 0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1 259:0 0 447.1G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 476M 0 part /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 446.7G 0 part /home
/

2nd install - why I do not have nvme01p2 mounted also on / ?? also no idea, tried 3 times
janul@debidesk:~$ lsblk -a
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
zram0 254:0 0 3.8G 0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1 259:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 476M 0 part /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 238G 0 part /home
janul@debidesk:~$

 

[f33dm3bits]

Most distributions that offer btrfs allow you to set it up when going through the installation process at the step where you get the choice of how you want your partitioning setup. You might as well start with some information like what distribution you are using and what Youtube video you followed along with since we can't read your mind and my crystal ball is in maintenance?

My guess is that you are trying to install Arch, if / is not mounted it's because you didn't mount it.
So first you have to partition your disk, create a partition for /boot and /boot/efi and then a partition for your btrfs partition. Then on the btrfs partition you create a btrfs filesystem, once you have done that you create a /(root aka @) sub-volume and then a /home(home aka @home) sub-volume. After that you can mount the / sub-volume on /mnt, after that you create a directory boot, boot/efi and home directory, then you can mount your efi and boot partitions on the corresponding locations as well as your /home sub-volume.

After that is done you can have to install the essential packages using "pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware" and when that is done you generate an fstab file, which would go something like this.

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

And finally you can chroot into your Arch installation to continue your installation.

arch-chroot /mnt

I haven't done any Arch installation in a while but it's best just to follow the steps in the official installation guide in the Archwiki.

Installation guide - ArchWiki

wiki.archlinux.org

 

[Jan U]

Most distributions that offer btrfs allow you to set it up when going through the installation process at the step where you get the choice of how you want your partitioning setup. You might as well start with some information like what distribution you are using and what Youtube video you followed along with since we can't read your mind and my crystal ball is in maintenance?

My guess is that you are trying to install Arch, if / is not mounted it's because you didn't mount it.
So first you have to partition your disk, create a partition for /boot and /boot/efi and then a partition for your btrfs partition. Then on the btrfs partition you create a btrfs filesystem, once you have done that you create a /(root aka @) sub-volume and then a /home(home aka @home) sub-volume. After that you can mount the / sub-volume on /mnt, after that you create a directory boot, boot/efi and home directory, then you can mount your efi and boot partitions on the corresponding location as well as your /home sub-volume.

After that is done you can have to install the essential packages using "pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware" and when that is done you generate an fstab file, which would go something like this.

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

And finally you can chroot into your Arch installation to continue your installation.

arch-chroot /mnt

I haven't done any Arch installation in a while but it's best just to follow the steps in the official installation guide in the Archwiki.

Installation guide - ArchWiki

wiki.archlinux.org

Hello,

thank you for your reply and for straight forward instruction this is very appreciated and i believe this will work generaly on mostly of distributions. Sorry for not including all necesary information, will keep in mind this for future posts . I am using raw debian, If you dont mind to get back to the topic for a while (the video is quite long but I believe you can omit the big part of it which includes standard configurations) here is the link for video,

, Partitioning starts at 5:30 afther that goes to shell for further config before installation. I followed the steps perfectly. His result from lsblk is not as mine (video 30:19).
What I will do now is to study a bit the topic of partitions, volumes, subvolumes in order to understand better what I am doing, ...originaly wanted to do the instalation by guide in order to just use btrfs because it seems great for restoring the system, which I need.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I watched the part where he switches over to the console from the installer and does the partitioning setup, it's mostly basically how I explained it. When he mounts the root(@) and home(@home) sub-volume he does it using the same partition because both sub-volumes are on the same btrfs partition.

 

[f33dm3bits]

It's probably easier to follow along with a website so I found one, you can just ignore the crypt volume and replace that with your actual btrfs partition and just use @ and @home sub-volumes.

Installing Debian 11 with btrfs Subvolumes on LUKS

While btrfs may be relatively “new” in regards to file systems, it is receiving widespread adoption, being included as the default FS in many distros. They is because it provides many advantages when compared to the traditional luks on lvm encrypted linux install: Subvolume Snapshots: btrfs is...

blackpine.io

Once you understand how the partitioning and btrfs works with sub-volumes it's not too complicated. However have you thought of using a Linux distribution that has support for creating sub-volumes during the installation through a GUI, since that will be faster and save you time.

 

[Jan U]

It's probably easier to follow along with a website so I found one, you can just ignore the crypt volume and replace that with your actual btrfs partition.

Installing Debian 11 with btrfs Subvolumes on LUKS

While btrfs may be relatively “new” in regards to file systems, it is receiving widespread adoption, being included as the default FS in many distros. They is because it provides many advantages when compared to the traditional luks on lvm encrypted linux install: Subvolume Snapshots: btrfs is...

blackpine.io

Once you understand how the partitioning and btrfs works with sub-volumes it's not too complicated. However have you thought of using a Linux distribution that has support for creating sub-volumes during the installation through a GUI, since that will be faster and safe you time.

I did for a second but I will not.
I will get into the topic better, I belive this will be very handy skill. . And until now i wa s using only backups,...restoring using btrfs is a thing compared to standard restoration process.
Thank you for your info, very handy,
I have noticed this article while googling, but I have ommited it as there is LUKs thinking that it will just make think more complicated, but it seems to be no problem and the explanation is nice, ...and I will not use timshift so.