[MULTI BOOT] Suggestions for Dual - Boot Hard Drive Partitioning

[jlapinsk4]

Good afternoon,

I am looking for advice on a partitioning set up on a 120 Gb SSD in order to dual boot Kubuntu 18.04 and Opensuse Leap 15. This is the current partitioning set up running Kubuntu 18.04

[IMG]file:///home/jlapinski/Pictures/Screenshot_20180602_114341.png[/IMG]

Any suggestions are appreciated!

[GreyGeek]

Personally, I would create two partitions and give each 60Gb. Or, give each 30GB and let 60GB be an archival drive.
Let them be /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3, for example.

Leap 15 defaults to a Btrfs root file system and creates several btrfs subvolumes (/home, /boot, /root, /usr etc... I don't remember exactly which directories are subvolumes, I stopped using SuSE when Novell took them over).
With Kubuntu Bionic you have to select Btrfs specifically, because it defaults to EXT4.

With Btrfs installed on both systems as the root file system you can use Btrfs's wonderful snapshot ability to make "backups" and their send&receive facility to archive and/or restore from a previous snapshot. IF you decide you want to stick with one installation and remove the other you can use Partitionmanager to delete the unwanted partition and make it raw. Then use the btrfs resize command to grow the existing installation to take up the space formerly used by the deleted installation.

Leap uses snapper to make and restore snapshots. Snapper is in Kubuntu's repository as well. With your limited disk space I would edit its config file to limit the number and frequency of snapshots that snapper makes to around 5. While snapshots are a good way to freeze an installation at a particular time and restore to that point at some later date, snapshots are not real backups because they reside on the same HD that the filesystem resides on. Backups are snapshots stored on external HDs (local or remote) which is what send & receive do.

I used SuSE from Sept of 1998 till Nov of 2002 (or 3?), It was, and is an excellent distro. You can't go wrong with it. Kubuntu 18.04 is also excellent. And, since both use the latest KDE Plasma 5.12.5 (IIRC) your desktop experience will be the same on both, depending on which additional apps you install and how you configure the desktops.

Both use systemd. Post installation Leap 15 uses Yast2, their graphical configuration engine. Kubuntu sticks with KDE System Settings.

[jlapinsk4]

Thank you so much for the detailed instructions! Since you have a lot of experience with SUSE, in your opinion are there really any functional differences between the two OSs? I am still relatively new to Linux (I've dabbled since 2012, but I've been using it full time for about a year now), I prefer the KDE desktop and have been looking to branch out beyond Ubuntu based systems (although I am not sure if I really need to).

[GreyGeek]

The big difference between OpenSUSE and Kubuntu is that SUSE is based on the RPM package manager, rpm for short, and Kubuntu built on top of Ubuntu, which is based on the Debian package manager, deb for short. For a while there was, IMO, a significant difference between the reliability of rpm and that of deb, but in the last 5-10 yrs rpm has become as stable as deb.

Ubuntu, hence Kubuntu (and Neon), has a bigger footprint than OpenSUSE so if you need a package that isn't in the 88,000+ package repository for Kubuntu (Ubuntu) the odds are that the source for that app will include a deb package. When I ran SuSE, from 5.3 to 6.4 (a period of five years and 20 releases, one per quarter) it used about 20 python scripts to manage the various aspects of SuSE's system, with Yast and later Yast2 controlling the 20 scripts. IF you tell YasT2 that you are going to take responsibility for managing your system it will stop working. I don't know if that is the way it is now.

As I said, the KDE Plasma 5.12.x desktop on both are essentially the same, but Kubuntu depends more on KDE config and management tools whereas OpenSUSE has its own set of config amd management tools. Both use systemd as process 1, and eventually systemd will control management of all aspects of both distros. Btrfs is a fabulous filesystem, worth its digital weight on Gold! Personally, I will never use a distro that doesn't allow me to set up Btrfs as the root file system.

I run KDE Neon User Edition because I want to be on the leading edge of the KDE desktop. IF I wanted to be on the bleeding edge I'd run KDE Neon Dev or Unstable. OpenSUSE Leap 15 is closer to Kubuntu and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is more like Neon User Edition.


But, either way, you can't go wrong.

[jlapinsk4]

Thank you so much for the information! As I said I am relatively new to Linux and I am not in the IT or coding industry so my usage is on a much different level. It is however quickly becoming a hobby for me and I enjoy trying out new distros. I came to Linux through Ubuntu and just discovered KDE and I have to admit I am sold (with the exceptions of KMail and Discover)! I hear things from the anti - Ubuntu crowd and that is what pushed me to investigate non - .deb systems. I did try Plasma Neon briefly but I haven't played around with it too much yet - but I think I am going to give it another look!

[GreyGeek]

Discover is *slowly* improving, but it is no where as quick and versatile as muon, IMO. KMail used to be gold and I used it for many years, up until I changed ISPs. My new ISP used imap and KMail couldn't configure for it. So, I switched to Thunderbird, which I had used years ago before I switched to KMail. IMO, KMail's big problem is that it depends on akonadi, which is always breaking.

The differences between Kubuntu 18.04 and KDE Neon User Edition based on Ubuntu 18.04 is that the Ubuntu 18.04 base for Neon will remain relatively static, except for security upgrades, while KDE will be on the front edge of stability. Kubuntu Bionic will have its Ubuntu base updated regularly, but KDE won't be, unless you get updates through backports.

Until you become familiar with operating Linux in general, and the specific distro you choose in particular, let me advise you against installing apps which are not in the repository unless you ask here first to see what the gray beards know about it. Big problems include trying to install KDE4 apps, which may or may not work on KDE5 (a.k.a. KDE Plasma5). There are standalone applications presented in packages called AppImages. All you have to do is drop them into a directory and click (or double click, depending on how you configure your mouse) and they open up and run without adding anything to your system. All libraries and such are included in the AppImage. Ubuntu packages another tool called Snap, which interfaces with the "Snap Store" to install/remove packages that are not in the repository. Its daemon, snapd, is always running as a background process. If you don't want to use snap then you can uninstall it. If you are into games and have a reasonably fast GPU (say NVidia GT650M or something similar or faster) you can install the Steam client and play games from Steam. Some are free but the better ones co$t. On I bought is called Universe Sandbox^2. Awesome astronomy simulation.

[oshunluvr]

For some reason your picture isn't loading for me, but why not do it right from the start and dual boot to a single BTRFS file system? I've been doing it for years. Then all your subvolumes can co-exist on a single file system and share all the free space.

With only 120GB to work with, free space will be at a premium if you're to dual-boot. I currently have 8 distros co-existing on a single btrfs file system and I even have a stand-alone GRUB install in a btrfs subvolume. It's not difficult, but it takes some work.

I have written about it extensively: Initial How-To --- Follow Up How-To --- Moving GRUB to a subvolume

If you read through those and want to try it, post back and I'll help you through it.

Basically, I would make a swap partition (RAM size plus 10%), an EFI partition (assuming you will need one) (no more than 500MB), possibly a BIOS/GPT boot space partition (sometimes needed to boot to a drive with grub, but you can put it before sector 2048 so it takes no space - I wrote about that here), and then all the rest of the space in a single btrfs partition.

Then install Kubuntu, go through my How-To and rename the Kubuntu subvolumes, verify it works, then install OpenSUSE to the same btrfs partition - obviously WITHOUT formatting it! - and violá - dual booting and all free space in one partition.

The only thing that might have to change from the above is if the OpenSUSE installer doesn't allow you to install without reformatting. If so, then install it first.

[oshunluvr]

OK, just for fun I install openSUSE Leap 15 in a VM. It does install to btrfs, BUT IT DOESN'T INSTALL USING SUBVOLUMES!

This is totally stupid and defeats the point of using BTRFS at all.

On the plus side it means you can install Leap and Bionic together on the same btrfs partition without problems or making adjustments OpenSUSE will not be snapshot capable with this setup as-is though. It is fixable after installation of course, but I can't imaging why someone thought not using a subvolume was a good idea.

[GreyGeek]

Suggestions for Dual - Boot Hard Drive Partitioning

Really? I haven’t installed it but I searched their literature for a list of installed subvolumes and found 12, at least. I’m assuming that they are subvolumes because that had @ in front of their names and the listing showed one was a level 5 and 10 were a level 257.

You can you install it without using Btrfs as the root filesystem.

[oshunluvr]

Maybe I did something wrong. I'm wiping it now to try again.

[jlapinsk4]

Thank you! I will look the link that you posted. I installed Gecko on a separate machine but gave up when Mint 19 Beta was released (but I am not all that pleased with the new Mint). I am not too familiar with BTRFS file systems and I need to do some research into it. I try to do most of my experimentation on my back up machine because I rely on my primary laptop for my job. I will read up on what you wrote and suggested and I will post an update.

[jlapinsk4]

@GreyGeek I wanted to as you a question specifically since you were talking about Plasma Neon. If I have the right ppa installed will that allow me to receive all the Plasma updates just as if I were running Neon?

[GreyGeek]

Maybe I did something wrong. I'm wiping it now to try again.

I'm burning an image as I write.
I will use that LiveUSB to install leap 15 onto another 64GB USB stick, selecting Btrfs as the root file system.

[GreyGeek]

@GreyGeek I wanted to as you a question specifically since you were talking about Plasma Neon. If I have the right ppa installed will that allow me to receive all the Plasma updates just as if I were running Neon?

I don't know. I installed Neon LTS User Edition from an ISO and use the repositories that it connects to. I've never attempted to install Neon from a PPA and I don't (didn't) know if such a PPA exists (existed).

[oshunluvr]

Really? I haven’t installed it but I searched their literature for a list of installed subvolumes and found 12, at least. I’m assuming that they are subvolumes because that had @ in front of their names and the listing showed one was a level 5 and 10 were a level 257.

You can you install it without using Btrfs as the root filesystem.

So it seems there a bug of sorts in the newest btrfs-tools where you can't mount the root-level btrfs volume UNLESS you use the option "subvolid=0", otherwise, the command "sudo mount /dev/sda3 /subvol" results in the default subvolume mounting instead of the root file system as in the past. So while I thought there were no subvolumes, they were still hidden. So I went and installed Kubuntu first, leaving the openSUSE leap partitions in place but reformatting the btrfs volume (which does nothing in reality). Once it was installed, I moved @ and @home to @Kubuntu_1804 and @Kubuntu_1804_home as I've done before and rebooted.

I ran into an error initially because I edited grub.cfg and ran update-grub after rebooting, but I hadn't run grub-install so grub looked for @ which wasn't there anymore. I've not seen that happen before that I recall, but I think it's related to the same btrfs issue - the "default subvolume". Apparently, when you do a new install, the first subvolume is set as the default and you can't delete it. This occurred because rather than renaming the subvolume as I usually do, I snapshot-ed it and booted to the snapshot. I don't know if this is a new "feature" or if I just haven't encountered it until now.

Once I got grub booting from @Kubuntu_1804, I reset the default subvolume to that one and deleted @. Then I re-installed openSUSE, I found the "Manage Subvolumes" dialog and deleted all of the openSUSE subvolumes, which resulted in openSUSE installing to "@".

So now I have a dual-booting openSUSE Leap 15 and Kubuntu 18.04 on the same btrfs subvolume. Even with all the issues I ran into, it still only took 30-40 minutes to get both installed. Since I install openSUSE last, I need to add Kubuntu to the GRUB menu, but basically, it's done.