Help partitioning a drive

[TwoFistedJustice]

I just got a used Thinkpad x260 with 256gb SSD to replace my dying x201 (the dreaded fan error)

I would appreciate some help partitioning the drive.

My usual setup on my old Windows machines would be to have one partition holding Windows and all programs and a separate un-protected partition which holds my documents, images, etc. The advantage of this setup is that if Windows go boom, my stuff doesn't go boom with it. Been using a similar setup since I lost everything to a Windows boom in late 1998.

My x201 is set up similarly to that. Except that the partition that holds all my docs and images is not accessible except when logged in to my main linux partition. This was an error on my part. But I have no idea how I did it or how to avoid it. And now I can only start my x201 intermittently, when the PC gods smile upon me. Fortunately there is nothing important on that computer. It's pretty much a mobile dev station. Which is what the x260 is slated to be.

How can I set up my document storage partition so that it is always accessible by pretty much anyone?

I will probably use btrfs instead of ext4, because I have tried both and ext4 blew up on me, where btrfs did not. (tho I never understood *why* it blew up on me)

[Don B. Cilly]

The way you tell it, it sounds like you have a Windows partition where you keep all your Windows documents - which supposedly you create from Windows - that you can only read from Linux.


Now, Linux can usually read Windows filesystems without any help. Windows, to read Linux's, needs a bit of help, in the form of some utility that must be installed to do that.
There are quite a few.

So, I probably misunderstood something. But if you tell us how you actually plan to partition and set up the new machine, people here will likely help with it.

[oshunluvr]

To access a file system from Windows you only need to use a Windows compatible file system on a partition. Then Windows will see it as drive D:/. You can even set the D: drive as the location for your Windows User folders. I believe at this point NTFS is your only option for this partition.

To answer the partitioning question: You'll need an EFI partition, a Windows system partition, possibly a Windows recovery partition, a linux SWAP partition (recommended, not required), a linux root partition, and a linux home partition (recommended, not required).

Assuming you bought a computer with Windows already on it, the first three partitions on my list above will likely already be there. You'll need to shrink your Windows system partition to make space to create the others as needed/desired. It's usually recommended to use a Windows partitioning tool to manipulate Windows partitions.

BE VERY SURE to turn off Windows "Quick start" or "Fast boot" what ever it's called. You do not want Windows to suspend when shutting it down, you will want it to be fully shutdown so you can access the Windows partitions from linux without issues.

[TwoFistedJustice]

I'm not going to run Windows. I was just using the past as an example of how I want to set up one future Linux partition. It is going to be a 100% Linux system. But I do want to be able to access that partition by just plugging the physical drive into an external enclosure and plugging that into another computer so I can grab the files I want. The partition doesn't have to be compatible with Windows.

[Don B. Cilly]

Well, to "set up one future Linux partition" for "a 100% Linux system", you'll need at least two, and four for best results.
Just as oshunluvr says. One for EFI - latest Kubuntu versions will whine and whinge no end if you don't have it - and at least one for your OS.
Then a swap one - highly recommended for sleep/hibernate - and eventually a separate /home one for easy recovery of your settings/documents.

The EFI one can be really small - say a few MB, like 32... less than half a gig anyway..
The swap one, just slightly bigger than the size of your RAM.
The / (root) one, say 20-30 GB. The rest can be /home.

Now, reading files from the disk is not a problem. Even from a Windows system you just need an utility that reads Linux filesystems.

[jlittle]

But I do want to be able to access that partition by just plugging the physical drive into an external enclosure and plugging that into another computer so I can grab the files I want. The partition doesn't have to be compatible with Windows.

So, by implication, the possible other computers won't be running Windows, ever? Nor MacOS, or iOS? Sounds, if not risky, not resilient.

For maximum portability a FAT32 (or vfat or exfat, I've forgotten the complexities there) partition for sharing files is the way to go. But one gives up modern niceties, like journaling, performance, very large files, and snapshotting.

the partition that holds all my docs and images is not accessible except when logged in to my main linux partition

Assuming all computers run Linux, I think you had a permissions issue with the drive, and that's easily fixed. I only know how to do that from the command line, and if you are not comfortable with that we'd be pleased in this forum to help you sort it out.

[TwoFistedJustice]

So, by implication, the possible other computers won't be running Windows, ever? Nor MacOS, or iOS? Sounds, if not risky, not resilient.
...

Assuming all computers run Linux, I think you had a permissions issue with the drive, and that's easily fixed. I only know how to do that from the command line, and if you are not comfortable with that we'd be pleased in this forum to help you sort it out.

Yeah that sounds about right. About the only time I access a drive like that is from a freshly set up system or after a major system failure like I just had with my x201.

I will need help with getting the partition permissions lax enough.

[TwoFistedJustice]

For setting permissions on a partition, someone I know told me that I have to do it at creation, that it's a lot harder or maybe not possible to do it after it is created.

Was he correct?

Or if I can change them afterwards, how do I do that?

[Snowhog]

Open a konsole and type: cat /etc/fstab

Copy and paste the output in your reply.

[TwoFistedJustice]

Open a konsole and type: cat /etc/fstab

Copy and paste the output in your reply.

Can not yet. The x201 won't start (usually) and it's somewhere else at the moment. The x260 hasn't been set up with Linux yet.

Can I safely infer from your request that all is NOT lost if I configure permissions incorrectly when I first set it up?

[TwoFistedJustice]

Swap and Root I understand. EFI I just looked up. It holds the kernels, pre-boot files and utilities. This is a bit confusing to me, what is the benefit?

I've read suggestions that I should just use the Windows EFI partition. But since I got the x260 off eBay and it came with a bootleg version of Windows running kmspico, I think I should wipe the drive. Do you concur?

How do I set up the EFI partition?

Do I even need it if I'm not dual booting?

Here's a hillbilly screen shot of the existing Windows partitions as seen by Kubuntu set up.

[TwoFistedJustice]

somehow I accidentally deleted my previous reply some minutes after I posted it by attempting to add a new reply. That is very odd.

Recap: I previously (in my now mysteriously self-deleted reply) asked if an EFI partition were necessary if I were not dual booting and if so, how to set it up?

Later: I did some more reading and now understand that BIOS has not been a thing for some time and UEFI has eaten poor old aged BIOS and that yes, an EFI partition is necessary.

Question:
The current Windows installation on my x260 is compromised (came that way off eBay).
Should I wipe the old EFI partition and create a new one from scratch?

If so, how do I do it properly?

Here's a screen "capture" of the x260 Windows partitions as seen by Kubuntu setup.

[Don B. Cilly]

Changing permissions is easy enough. And if you're not comfortable with the command line, you'll soon be. ;·)

About partitioning. Sure, wipe it. Making a new EFI is not much of an effort.
See, your /dev/sda1 is your EFI partition. Only 33 MB used. Mine uses 6.8 MB, and I have six distros on HD. So a quarter gig is plenty.
Just make it FAT32 and give it /boot/efi as mount point.

Then, assuming your RAM is 16GB, make a swap one say, 20G.
The rest can go on an EXT4/BTRFS one as big as what's left (mount point /).

Or you can split the rest up between / (root) and /home. And set the corresponding mount points.
This is useful in case you re-install the system, so nothing in /home is wiped, and your settings and documents are preserved.
Personally, I don't bother with it, I do regular backups.

About EXT4 vs BTRFS, matter of opinion.
You'll find endless discussion on the matter here and elsewhere.
Personally, I find BTRFS to be from the Complicating Simple Things Department. Its main advantage seems to be the ease of taking snapshots of your current system, but my backup program (root-mode backintime) does that just fine with EXT4. But I don't have much experience with it, so I may be quite wrong there.

If you're given a choice between MBR and GPT partitioning - the installer should do that, I would definitely go for GPT.
Even if you've chosen MBR, though, subsequently converting to GPT without any data loss is very simple.

[oshunluvr]

somehow I accidentally deleted my previous reply some minutes after I posted it by attempting to add a new reply. That is very odd.

Recap: I previously (in my now mysteriously self-deleted reply) asked if an EFI partition were necessary if I were not dual booting and if so, how to set it up?

Later: I did some more reading and now understand that BIOS has not been a thing for some time and UEFI has eaten poor old aged BIOS and that yes, an EFI partition is necessary.

Question:
The current Windows installation on my x260 is compromised (came that way off eBay).
Should I wipe the old EFI partition and create a new one from scratch?

If so, how do I do it properly?

Here's a screen "capture" of the x260 Windows partitions as seen by Kubuntu setup.

You're only required to use EFI if you are using Windows and your computer is set that way. If you enable "Legacy Boot" and disable "Secure Boot" in UEFI then delete all your partitions, the Kubuntu installer should automatically use the familiar GRUB installation without EFI partitioning required. If you want to use EFI boot, just delete all the partitions and leave your UEFI settings as-is and the installer should create the needed partition for EFI.

If you prefer manual partitioning (I do), assuming you'll use GPT partitioning (you should) simply crate a small partition of type EF00 and format it to fat32 along with your other partitions and install, Some people still subscribe to the notion that the EFI partition must be flagged bootable but I don't believe this to be true (mine's not). The minimum recommended size of an EFI partition is 100MB. I suggest somewhat larger in case you decide to install several distros. Mine is 260MB with about 34MB used and my laptop has Windows 10 along with 3 linux installs, so maybe 100MB is enough.

[TwoFistedJustice]

You're only required to use EFI if you are using Windows and your computer is set that way. If you enable "Legacy Boot" and disable "Secure Boot" in UEFI then delete all your partitions, the Kubuntu installer should automatically use the familiar GRUB installation without EFI partitioning required. If you want to use EFI boot, just delete all the partitions and leave your UEFI settings as-is and the installer should create the needed partition for EFI.

If you prefer manual partitioning (I do), assuming you'll use GPT partitioning (you should) simply crate a small partition of type EF00 and format it to fat32 along with your other partitions and install, Some people still subscribe to the notion that the EFI partition must be flagged bootable but I don't believe this to be true (mine's not). The minimum recommended size of an EFI partition is 100MB. I suggest somewhat larger in case you decide to install several distros. Mine is 260MB with about 34MB used and my laptop has Windows 10 along with 3 linux installs, so maybe 100MB is enough.

I'm reading up on EFI here:
https://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootlo...rinciples.html

One take away is that the author recommends a minimum safe size for an ESP (EFI System Partition) (double acronym! Impress your friends!) as 550MiB

I also think this thread is creeping away from my original question and turning into a new thread. So I'm going to start a new thread about EFI partitions.

Please make any additional replies about EFI on the new EFI thread.