Separate home partitions vs. root partitions only

Jeffrey Lapinski

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So here's the scenario: on my main laptop I am running Manjaro Cinnamon (currently as a the only OS), I do plan to multi boot this laptop in the future but it is not currently a multi boot system. I have a 256 GB SSD. When I installed MNJRO Cinnamon I allotted 30 GB as the "/" partition and did not set up a separate /home. I do not use a lot of software, I am not a gamer, and I actually store data in either my pcloud account on an the internal HDD. That being said, my 30 GB partition for "/" is nearly full!

My question: should I increase the size of "/" or can I add a "/home" partition after the fact?
 


My question: should I increase the size of "/"

You can. You will not be able to do it from within your existing MJRO Cinnamon. Use GParted either from another Distro if you have one, or from an install disk/stick, or from a GParted Live disk/stick.

or can I add a "/home" partition after the fact?

You can, although it is likely unnecessary. If you wish to see how much is in your Home folder currently, open a fresh Terminal. Default will be for you to be in /home/yourusername/ . To check, type and enter pwd for present working directory. If you are already in a Terminal and are elsewhere, type in cd ~ - that is cd, a space and a tilde. At /home/yourusername, type in and enter
Code:
du -ah
. This will give you a human readable output for what is there, and the last line will reveal a figure. Tell us what that figure is.

Cheers

Wizard
 
Last edited:
Just to answer in the appropriate Thread:

The filling of the 30 GB rapidly is a glitch of some description, either to do with how MJRO Cinnamon was installed, or to do with software you have introduced since.

Unless you downloaded a bunch of 4GB videos into Downloads, that figure, although I know it is true, is crazy.

I use MJRO Cinnamon every other day, and my output is (last few lines only)

96K ./.cinnamon/configs
4.0K ./.cinnamon/backgrounds/user-folders.lst
8.0K ./.cinnamon/backgrounds
108K ./.cinnamon
20K ./Downloads/dell-color-laser-3110cn_1.0-1_all.deb
12K ./Downloads/Fuji_Xerox-DocuPrint_CM305_df-Postscript.ppd
36K ./Downloads
4.0K ./.esd_auth
630M .

That is, a total of 630MB.

Sooner or later, I will get to producing a Thread "Space Hogs" (sounds like a Disney movie), but that could be in the 4th Age of Man, a millennium hence.

So as a preview, the following code

Code:
du -ch -d 1 | sort -hr

produces, for me

[chris@MJRO17dot11-Cinn-WD ~]$ du -ch -d 1 | sort -hr
632M total
632M .
548M ./.cache
60M ./.mozilla
21M ./.thunderbird

2.0M ./.config
1.4M ./Pictures
396K ./.local
108K ./.cinnamon
36K ./Downloads
16K ./Desktop
12K ./.gnupg
4.0K ./Videos
4.0K ./Templates
4.0K ./Public
4.0K ./Music
4.0K ./Documents
[chris@MJRO17dot11-Cinn-WD ~]$

You can see from this that ".cache", Mozilla (Firefox) and Thunderbird (also Mozilla) are the largest consumers.

I have one picture in Pictures (likely a screenshot), and something small in Downloads.

The bunch of 4K entries is an overhead for those folders being in existence (Windows and Mac have the same commitment).

So had you not deleted your Distro, we could have looked at that, but c'est la vie :)

Handy perhaps for you in future.

BTW establishing a separate Home partition will not mitigate this space issue if the same things keep occurring. If you have other operating Distros to back you up, it is better to work out what is the problem with the recalcitrant Distro? Yeah?

I also do not remember where you installed Citrix, but the timing may be indicative. We could also check with Manjaro's package manager or other avenue such as bash history, for what was installed via GUI and Terminal.

Cheers

Wizard
 
As usual, you make an huge amount of sense (you must be a wizard or something) :D
I haven't looked to see how large CItrix and it certainly may be downloading junk files when I log in (I know it downloads something each time). As far as what I intentionally download there isn't much. I haven't been downloading any videos or music files and truthfully the only thing I have downloaded have been some wall papers from https://www.opendesktop.org/

I am going to try again with the single / partition and no /Home on another machine and I will report back with the output as you did above.
 
du -ch -d 1 | sort -hr

I am running MJRO 18 XFCE on another (laptop #3) not the subject of prior threads but out of curiosity I ran the above thread and I may have found my issue

Code:
[jlap4@jeffrey-pc ~]$ du -ch -d 1 | sort -hr
du: cannot read directory './pCloudDrive/Crypto Folder': Permission denied
35G    total
35G    .
19G    ./pCloudDrive
7.5G    ./Downloads
4.0G    ./.thunderbird
3.3G    ./.pcloud
807M    ./.cache
568M    ./.wine
50M    ./.mozilla
1.4M    ./.local
1.2M    ./.config
564K    ./.thumbnails
92K    ./.gnupg
76K    ./.pki
76K    ./.ICAClient
8.0K    ./.hplip
4.0K    ./Videos
4.0K    ./Templates
4.0K    ./Public
4.0K    ./Pictures
4.0K    ./Music
4.0K    ./.gphoto
4.0K    ./Documents
4.0K    ./Desktop

If I am reading the output correctly /pCoudDrive is taking up 19 G? Why is my "cloud" device taking up so much physical disk space? The next "space hog" appears to be /Downloads.
 
In the case of The Little Mouse spin of MJRO, then, Cloud Drive is one of the major Space Hogs. I have not ever used it, I use Mega, but only occasionally.

You would have to cross-reference its contents with those you have in cyber storage, to see if it is keeping a copy on your physical drive that you may or may not wish to eliminate. Likewise with the Swiss product pCloud.

With say Cloud Drive, you could from Terminal

Code:
cd ~/pCloudDrive
#and then from there
du -ch -d 1 | sort -hr

Likewise with pcloud and Downloads.

This would then give you an idea of what to look for in your FM (File Manager) which under Xfce is Thunar.

The Thunderbird component is not inordinately large if you migrated your postboxes (In, Sent &c) from elsewhere. Some of the differences can be accounted for with the differences between IMAP and POP3 protocols employed.

Given you plan on being a multibooter - different DEs (Desktop Environments) use different FMs, as you are likely aware by now, eg Cinnamon - Nemo, KDE - Dolphin, MATE - Caja, Xfce - Thunar.

And each of them may have a different way of revealing hidden files and folders. A common protocol for a one-off reveal is Ctrl-h

Under View, there may be Hidden Files, and there may be an option in Edit-Preferences to permanently show.

With Thunar there is no option in Preferences, but choosing View - Hidden Files will reveal, and the change will "stick" until altered, that is it survives rebooting.

Another option for you is to consider depending on the settings options for pCloudDrive and pcloud is to make their Save to option point at eg a Data partition on your 1TB HDD. This could also be done with Downloads, and an added benefit in that instance is availability of downloads you choose to keep being easily accessed across Distros.

Cheers

Wiz
 
I wonder if downloading the pCloud application in AUR so I could mount it as a drive is the culprit? I could always just log in to pCloud on line and upload the files so I don’t have to keep them locally on the SSD. I only have one POP3 mail account (unseen.is) and I’m pretty sure I can convert it to an IMAP.

Can I toss in another MJRO specific question in regard to multibooting or would you prefer I start a new thread?
 


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