Partition SSD / Home

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hello,

I’m a new user of opensuse. I have installed it few days ago and i’m trying to understand how things works with leap 15.3. First i had difficulties updating the system i had several errors at the begining. It was not explain that i had to replace the system package in software repositories (yast).

Now my issue is that i can’t access home because my system is install on an SSD and on manjaro (my previous distro) i made a seperate home on an HDD. Is it because my system is in BTRFS and my home in ext4 ?

An other issue i face is when i can’t install an app because it is not in the repositories, is flatpack a good alternative ? Would you rather choose yast over discover or gnome software ? (im on kde but i’m not sure it is the one i will stay with because there is too much configuration to make it simple without specials effects).

I’m sorry if i’m not making myself clear because english isn’t my main language.

Thanks for your help,

Have a good day !

https://i.postimg.cc/gL6TMf7m/Screenshot-20210608-132226.png](https://postimg.cc/gL6TMf7m)

https://i.postimg.cc/2btt7z20/Screenshot-20210608-132242.png](https://postimg.cc/2btt7z20)

#2

Could you post the output from:

sudo fdisk -l

and

sudo cat /etc/fstab
#3

Sure ! Here what you asked :

https://i.postimg.cc/56B7kcgN/Screenshot-20210608-142710.png](https://postimg.cc/56B7kcgN)

https://i.postimg.cc/FYhPMPCb/Screenshot-20210608-142740.png](https://postimg.cc/FYhPMPCb)

Thanks for your time.

Perhaps, as you see in the pictures, the name julien (my real name) is associated with manjaro and i didn’t want that name but i didn’t have the possibility to change.

#4

Home is mounted from the BTRFS partition. If you have a separate home partition some where you need to mount it as /home. You can do this easiest in yast-partitioner Unmount current home sub partition and mount the partition you want as home. save and reboot

#5

I did modify as you said the home partition but when i did that, nothing could open anymore. Even terminal couldnt launch. So i force the reboot but now on the login screen when i enter my password, it juste stays on the login screen and i cant access anything…

#6

Are you sure you pointed it to the formatted home partition you wanted to use?? Sounds to me as if you pointed it to the wrong thing. I do this all the time since I always do a new install and switch between my old and new mounting mounting my old home on the new system once I’m sure it is stable. note I don’t use BTRFS so maybe that might be an issue.

Start other Linux or start a rescue system and see what etc/fstab looks like on the partition holding openSUSE root

#7

But did you use that partition for /home already during installation (changing the defaults offered)? Or did you try later to repair what you forgot.

#8

So ! I did reinstall the system because i wasn’t able to do anything.

My home was separate from my ssd at first. But, i think, opensuse did switch from my old home to another one on the SSD. During the installation i tried to partition myself like i did with calamares but it aint as easy sadly…

“Are you sure you pointed it to the formatted home partition you wanted to use?? Sounds to me as if you pointed it to the wrong thing. I do this all the time since I always do a new install and switch between my old and new mounting mounting my old home on the new system once I’m sure it is stable. note I don’t use BTRFS so maybe that might be an issue.”

I’m not sure but you might be right because i can’t see anything else that could have caused that.

Here a photo of the yast’s “gparted” i have:

https://i.postimg.cc/0ry1rsvK/Screenshot-20210608-205900.png](https://postimg.cc/0ry1rsvK)

What is the difference between sda and system ? When i try to modify the /home i did it on the sda because i’ve never seen the dev/system on other distros before so i thought i should not touch that (maybe i was wrong about that). Now when i want to modify (in system) the /home i have several possibilities but dont know which one to choose.

I’m sorry if the photo i post is not welcomed on this forum. I did get the recommandation in PM but it was for terminal text so i’m not sure it applies on picture like that.

“But did you use that partition for /home already during installation (changing the defaults offered)? Or did you try later to repair what you forgot.”

I wanted to get access to the /home i lost during the installation of leap 15.3 (on my HDD).

#9

You have setup an LVM. That’s a region on the disk that is subdivided into logical volumes. Your “system/home” is a logical volume within that LVM. You also have other logical volumes there.

#10

So do i have to unmount the LV /home system and then create a /home on the sdb ?

#11

I cannot read you mind to know what you really want to do. And I don’t have the computer to check what is really happening.

If you want to reuse that space, then the easiest way might be to boot to a live system (live DVD or live USB), and do any reformatting there. The reboot will unmount everything. It is then up to you to assign the disk space the way that you want.

#12

As @nrickert wrote in post #11, we really don’t know exactly what you are attempting to achieve.

It would help us to help you if you were able to clarify a few things. In your initial post you wrote:

I’m a new user of opensuse. I have installed it few days ago and i’m trying to understand how things works with leap 15.3. First i had difficulties updating the system i had several errors at the begining. …

Was that an update from an existing openSUSE Leap 15.2 system, or were you attempting to update from a different distribution? (As you wrote you were a new user of openSUSE and subsequently made mention of manjaro being your previous distribution).

Now my issue is that i can’t access home because my system is install on an SSD and on manjaro (my previous distro) i made a seperate home on an HDD. …

Your /home (that you can’t access) is an existing one on the SSD? and, if so, what created that?

I’m sorry if i’m not making myself clear because english isn’t my main language.

We appreciate that can cause issues :slight_smile:

#13

I keep getting error installing opensuse even if i feel like what i want is very simple…

To make myself as clear as possible. I have an ssd and and HDD. I want my system (app etc) on the SSD for a faster boot and i want my data on my HDD in case something happen and because i have more space in this hard drive.

Everytime i install opensuse (the installation take 1h30 maybe 2) i’m getting error for a few things like getting access to that HDD where my date were stocked on manjaro. On my ssd i had nothing except my app. I installed leap on the ssd but it installed everything, including a /home on the ssd so the one i had on the hdd can’t be access anymore. My last bug i had is, i just finished reinstalling opensuse (after 2hours), i selected expert partition, i did on sda an boot/efi of 4gb + the rest of / for the system. Then sdb for /home + swap but now i try to enter my password but it just freeze on the login screen, and i can’t do nothing except for to switch of.

Now… i don’t know what to do anymore. For the installation, is it normal that it takes ages ? Do i have to choose lvm ? Do i need to choose btrfs or etx4 ? I read so many things on the web that i can’t understand what’s good, what’s not. I want to be apple to install app when needed, delete things when needed, play games if i want to… I would like to delete discover because i don’t understand why there is yast software management + discover ? (same for gnome). I only have issues with discover (when i have to update app).

Sorry that my thoughts goes a little bit everywhere but i can’t express all the things that are happening even though what i want is very simple…Maybe i’m doing everything wrong which has to be the case because stability is often associate with this distribution which i have no doubt.

Thanks again for your time ! I appreciate it.

#14

We assume that the system was installed and is capable of booting, but maybe there are some problems.
Try booting to command line, login as root and check the results of a few commands. To do so:
1- Boot your system, at the boot menu press “E” to edit the boot command line.
2- Go to the line beginning with “LINUXEFI” and append “3” (without quotes) then press “F10” to boot the system.
3- At the Login prompt type “root”, then the root password when prompted.

At this point you should be able to work on the system as superuser, your /home is not involved in the process so if there are errors you should be able to investigate.
I would begin with the following commands:

cat /etc/fstab

to see if and where your system tries to mount your disk partitions and/or volumes

lsblk -fm

to see what disks/partitions are actually mounted and where.
If /home is actually found and mounted, look at

ls -l /home

to see if there is what you expect and if the right permissions are there.
Post the results if you need help.

A freeze at the graphic login screen might be a graphics driver problem and might have nothing to do with your disks or /home.
A default install may take up to 30 minutes on a system with fast disks and fast network if needed, but that might easily extend to 2 hours or even more if a slow disk, slow USB boot medium or slow network connections are involved.

#15

We need also to establish what, if anything, is on the HDD that the OP is using for /home as several references have been made such as:

If that /home was created by manjaro, then depending upon what is there, in terms of user configuration files, it may(?) be the reason for:

… i selected expert partition, i did on sda an boot/efi of 4gb + the rest of / for the system. Then sdb for /home + swap but now i try to enter my password but it just freeze on the login screen, and i can’t do nothing except for to switch of.

Briefly, my own take on your other questions:

… Do i have to choose lvm ?

Probably not… Unless you specifically need some of the features provided. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Volume_Manager_(Linux) for a brief overview.

Do i need to choose btrfs or etx4 ?

That’s very much personal preference. For myself, I use ext4 and not btrfs, however quite a lot of users on here do use btrfs.

If you think you may need the ability to “rollback” because of some (future) install error, then use btrfs. Again, personally, I’ve not (yet) found myself thinking “Hmm… should have used btrfs)…”

I would like to delete discover because i don’t understand why there is yast software management + discover ? (same for gnome). I only have issues with discover (when i have to update app).

Yes, I’m not a great fan of “Discover” and have removed it and use only YaST or zypper for software installation. I don’t have Gnome installed and only use KDE, but again, very much personal preference.

#16

Thanks for the feedback. I did reinstall but this time tumbleweed. For some reasons, i did not have as many “choices” during the install so maybe it was easier for me (i doubt so). This time it seems working, i can reach my /home on my HDD. I have gnome installed (i’m giving it a try). I stayed with ext4 which i known for a while since my debut on linux.

As a rolling release, do i have to go to yast everyday or at least once a week to update the software ? Do you update with gnome software/ discover or yast or command line ? Which one is easier according to you ?

Second question, would you concider snapcraft better than flatpak ? I want to install discord.

I don’t care having the latest software but now that the rolling seems working, i’m kind of scared to move to leap, unless there is a way to switch between the two without too much trouble ?

After your future answers, you can end this topic (i’m saying that for the moderator) even though i will have more questions for sure :). I tried a discord once for opensuse but it was not reactive at all so i will wait until i’m stucked to write on this forum again because it is active and that is encouraging to stay in case of big issues.

#17

OK - Good to know you now have a working system :slight_smile: …

As a rolling release, do i have to go to yast everyday or at least once a week to update the software ? Do you update with gnome software/ discover or yast or command line ? Which one is easier according to you ?

TW is updated quite frequently with the release of a new “snapshots”, they are announced both here on the forum and on the factory mailing list. ( https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/factory@lists.opensuse.org/ )

Although it’s not strictly necessary to update on each snapshot, don’t let TW get too out of date, personally I don’t like being more than current minus two.

The only way to update TW is from the command line using “zypper dup” as each snapshot is treated as a distribution upgrade. It’s generally “safer” to log out of any graphical environment, drop to a virtual terminal, login and update from there.

Second question, would you concider snapcraft better than flatpak ? I want to install discord.

I’ll leave that to others, as I don’t use either I’m afraid.

… i’m kind of scared to move to leap, unless there is a way to switch between the two without too much trouble ?

Not easily, as TW is often quite a way ahead of Leap. You could consider setting up dual-boot, but that’s not a road I’d go down myself.

… so i will wait until i’m stucked to write on this forum again because it is active and that is encouraging to stay in case of big issues.

Enjoy your stay :slight_smile:

As an aside, I’ve been using TW for several years now, on the whole it’s proven quite reliable, only one “major” incident when I had to re-install grub, apart from that no real problems.

#18

Personally I scan the announcements and upgrade when I see that something important to me or basic pieces of the system are included, that means a few times per month.
Speaking of software tools, what matters is what is easier to you, not to us old command line folks! Humor aside, I would not use discover as long as you stick with Gnome, I doubt if anybody is really testing it on Gnome.
YaST Software and zypper (command line) are automatically tested by OpenQA prior to every new snapshot release and in case of trouble you are almost sure to receive help here on the Forums.
PackageKit / the Gnome update applet should do what a “zypper dup” does, but I prefer the extra safety that switching to a virtual console (CTRL+ALT+F1 for instance) and logging in as the user “root” gives.

Second question, would you concider snapcraft better than flatpak ? I want to install discord.

I see that “discord” is offered here for Tumbleweed https://software.opensuse.org/package/discord and there is a “1 Click Install” button too, so no need for flatpacks.

#19

FWIW

Discord 0.0.15 ( discord-0.0.15-1.1.x86_64.rpm ) is in the non-oss TW repository: https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/non-oss/x86_64/

I’m not familiar with that piece of software, maybe you need a later version, hence the need to install using flatpack / snapcraft.

Edit: @OrsoBruno … gee, I wish I could type as fast as you, and you had more text! :slight_smile: …

#20

Thanks for the tips !

One last thing. If i want to modify the partitioning within my system. Can it works like that ?

https://i.postimg.cc/G8LbWDkz/Screenshot-20210610-234408.png](https://postimg.cc/G8LbWDkz)

I have to unmount sdb1 and make it /home and it will automatically mount sda3 into / ? Wont it blocks my system if suddently my /home goes on an other hard drive ?

I don’t have to do that on an bootable usb ?