Format a home partition

With google I found that with Gparted or tumbleweed installed on a ssd in my pc, or from the command line, I could easely format the home folder. on sdb.

sdb has a working tumbleed install with kde.

What I can’ t figure out, will this formatting kill KDE?

I know some parts of kde are stored in your home folder.

Would a reinstall of kde fix this ?

(start yast from the command line)

I would like to not back up anything from the current home partition. on sdb.

You should provide output from the following for us to be able to offer good advice:

cat /etc/fstab
sudo parted -l
sudo blkid

Please paste output from these commands here surrounded by code tags.

sda - windows 10
sdb - tumbleweed
ssd - Second tumbleweed install.

As we type all 3 os can be booted.

UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /                       btrfs  defaults                    
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /var                    btrfs  subvol=/@/var               
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /usr/local              btrfs  subvol=/@/usr/local         
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /srv                    btrfs  subvol=/@/srv               
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /root                   btrfs  subvol=/@/root              
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /opt                    btrfs  subvol=/@/opt               
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /home                   btrfs  subvol=/@/home              
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi  btrfs  subvol=/@/boot/grub2/x86_64-
efi  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /boot/grub2/i386-pc     btrfs  subvol=/@/boot/grub2/i386-pc
  0  0 
UUID=6d17eb33-51a2-4ed2-8cda-fe29e8fefa8c  swap                    swap   defaults                    
  0  0 
UUID=9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218  /.snapshots             btrfs  subvol=/@/.snapshots        
  0  0 
UUID=3AB8-553F                             /boot/efi               vfat   utf8                        
  0  2

Model: ATA WDC WD10EZEX-08W (scsi) 
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB 
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B 
Partition Table: gpt 
Disk Flags:  

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                          Flags 
 1      1049kB  556MB   555MB   ntfs         Basic data partition          hidden, diag 
 2      556MB   660MB   104MB   fat32        EFI system partition          boot, esp 
 3      660MB   676MB   16,8MB               Microsoft reserved partition  msftres 
 4      676MB   1000GB  1000GB  ntfs         Basic data partition          msftdata 


Model: ATA ST1000DM010-2EP1 (scsi) 
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB 
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B 
Partition Table: gpt 
Disk Flags:  

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags 
 1      1049kB  525MB   524MB   fat16                 boot, esp 
 2      525MB   27,0GB  26,5GB  ext4 
 3      27,9GB  998GB   970GB   xfs 
 4      998GB   1000GB  2148MB  linux-swap(v1)        swap 


Model: Samsung SSD 980 1TB (nvme) 
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 1000GB 
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B 
Partition Table: gpt 
Disk Flags:  

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags 
 1      1049kB  538MB   537MB   fat32              boot, esp 
 2      538MB   1000GB  1000GB  btrfs 
[FONT=monospace]/dev/sda1: LABEL="Herstel" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="A63A73D93A73A549" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data 
partition" PARTUUID="30a4fa2a-4d6a-49f6-b576-f85c3c39644b" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="9474-CF21" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="70
e1d660-fa10-4c6b-af84-2f6220bf4308" 
/dev/sda3: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="0f63e829-852b-4034-97c7-0d95b4013ac1" 
/dev/sda4: BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="EA0E76BE0E76837D" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTU
UID="5927130e-8679-43f1-9d62-5d879be74451" 
/dev/sdb1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="F9E4-F140" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="74073301-124d-44a5
-94d7-a68ba4d49f7f" 
/dev/sdb2: UUID="f032ab3a-eb51-4f2b-a938-98cc7fa90616" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="041e17f
f-f626-4dba-a549-78f1eb724656" 
/dev/sdb3: UUID="83da1f9a-70c5-4519-8ce4-caa8b30c5383" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="xfs" PARTUUID="cf35cc4c
-afc8-4d1c-9e5c-12669d595c89" 
/dev/sdb4: UUID="6d17eb33-51a2-4ed2-8cda-fe29e8fefa8c" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="6e842b5a-57f4-4597-bdaf-2
78fe12d7093" 
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="3AB8-553F" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="e309de90-d4c1-41a4-bf93-1838b4
eeb944" 
/dev/nvme0n1p2: UUID="9c8140f9-0b81-41eb-ab94-d7342c38d218" UUID_SUB="516ade50-eb26-462b-9e77-8fd81a3f
e2d5" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="btrfs" PARTUUID="72155361-856f-4c12-8325-119e9b78931c"


[/FONT]

Is there any particular reason why you wish to do this?

What I can’ t figure out, will this formatting kill KDE?
No. KDE is installed on your EXT4 sdb2 system partition, not your XFS sdb3 partition.

I know some parts of kde are stored in your home folder.
Only personal settings are kept there. If they are lost because you formatted the /home partition, Plasma will make new ones, once your basic user directory has been created so that you can login.

Would a reinstall of kde fix this ?
Fix what? What is broken?

I would like to not back up anything from the current home partition. on sdb.
That’s OK, as long as there is nothing on sdb3 that matters to you that isn’t also on a known good backup for you to restore after reformatting sdb3.

Thank you.

The reason why I want to format that partition, is because I can’t shrink an XFS partition.

So I can’t create an extra partition on that disk, for a virtual machine.

When I build this pc, I made mistake. I thought I would have xfs for root and ext 4 for home but as you have seen its the other way round.
This was never a real problem, until I started to use a virtual machine and the installer asked me if I wanted to use a separate partition, (instead of root) for some file storage.

Formatting home to ext 4 will fix this problem because then I can add an extra partition.