Replacing system partition (BTRFS?)

I have a fairly dynamic 13.2 system partition which needs to be replaced every 6 months or so; up to now this has not been a problem, stick in the DVD, restart the system to activate the DVD install routine, select the auto option to reformat the / partition only leaving the /home and swap intact, let it complete and back to work. Simple.

Then yesterday something had changed. Booting from DVD did not show me the usual option - the option suggested was to reformat all partitions and despite searching for other options it would not offer to reformat only the / system partition (BTRFS). After various attempts to reformat just the / partition I finally got to a stage where grub could not find a system to boot from, then DVD install offered me the option I wanted, replace system only and it went ahead and successfully replaced the partition with a new system.

Having done some reading about BTRFS I wonder if this might have caused the issue? My replacement system uses ext4 which is what I had used on previous occasions. My / partition is only 20 GB, I understand that BTRFS likes about 40 GB. It was lack of free space due in part to uncontrolled growth of log files that provoked the need to replace.

On 2015-04-23 12:26, colbec wrote:

> Having done some reading about BTRFS I wonder if this might have caused
> the issue? My replacement system uses ext4 which is what I had used on
> previous occasions. My / partition is only 20 GB, I understand that
> BTRFS likes about 40 GB. It was lack of free space due in part to
> uncontrolled growth of log files that provoked the need to replace.

Very possibly.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))