Which Distro, Which Partition?

[JoHubb]

I have several distros on one HDD. These were installed when I was experimenting with Linux distros several years ago.

I would like to clean this up and install Kubuntu 20.04 in their place. This is my /dev/sdd set up:



I need to know which Linux distros are on /dev/sdd7 and /dev/sdd8, but I cannot find a way of doing this. When I am sure about these, I plan to 'delete/merge' them and install 20.04 in a new partition in that space.

(Kubuntu 18.04 is installed in /dev/sde2 and I want to keep that in the meantime).

I'd be grateful for advice on how to proceed so that 20.04 appears in the grub menu. Thanks!

[jlittle]

Look for a -release file in /etc. For ubuntu it's lsb-release, and that might be debian as well. In gentoo it's gentoo-release and centos has system-release as a link to centos-release.

All those discs and partitions... I suggest you check out btrfs, and consider moving towards it. With btrfs lots of distros and versions can all live in the same file system, and if you have a few installs it makes things much easier, as the free space is shared. I've had several *buntus, including KDE Neon, and gentoo, all in my smallish SSD.

[JoHubb]

Thanks!

Look for a -release file in /etc. For ubuntu it's lsb-release, and that might be debian as well. In gentoo it's gentoo-release and centos has system-release as a link to centos-release.

lsb-release in my distros just confirms the name and version of the active distro. It doesn't identify the partition the OS is on.

All those discs and partitions... I suggest you check out btrfs, and consider moving towards it. With btrfs lots of distros and versions can all live in the same file system, and if you have a few installs it makes things much easier, as the free space is shared. I've had several *buntus, including KDE Neon, and gentoo, all in my smallish SSD.

As an old dog, I am very nervous about learning new tricks like btrfs, but you never know. My system looks complicated but I have one HDD acting as a W10 music server. Another HDD is a backup for it, and another for some of the Linux stuff.

[claydoh]

lsb-release in my distros just confirms the name and version of the active distro. It doesn't identify the partition the OS is on.

Physically browse your partitions for the file(s) and open them to see what they show.
If you can see them all in your grub menu this may work:

awk -F\' '/menuentry / {print $2}' /boot/grub/grub.cfg

For me it lists the kernels for my current OS as expected, plus That Other OS That Never Gets Booted, and shows its location. I don't have any other distros installed at all, so I can't verify of Linux entries show the partition info, but I would assume it does.

[jglen490]

How about

os-prober

[jlittle]

lsb-release in my distros just confirms the name and version of the active distro. It doesn't identify the partition the OS is on.

I don't understand your response, which indicates mutual confusion.

I'm suggesting you mount each partition and look on each for an etc directory. The partition is identified as the one you are looking in. If there's no etc directory, maybe it's a home partition. If you do find etc directories, look in the fstab there to find which partitions are mounted by that install; that will help identify the home partitions (or other non-OS partitions; some distros may have lots). It's possible that you have a non-OS partition which is not referred to by any /etc/fstab; that would be a sort of orphan partition, whose original install is no longer present. I have a couple of those, that I haven't got around to reusing the space.

[GreyGeek]

....
As an old dog, I am very nervous about learning new tricks like btrfs, but you never know. My system looks complicated but I have one HDD acting as a W10 music server. Another HDD is a backup for it, and another for some of the Linux stuff.

Old dog, huh? I'm 80 and I've been using BTRFS since 2016. I will NEVER use a distro which doesn't allow me to make BTRFS the root filesystem. Jlittle and Oshunluver have some posts on the BTRFS subforum. I have a few posts there too, but they are getting dated as advances proceed, so, the best source of BTRFS info begins here: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page

I experimented with Snapper, TimeShift and a couple other GUI's to backup utilities for BTRFS but found my own script worked better for my use case. It's posted in the BTRFS subforum. What I like about BTRFS, beside its rock solid stability, is the ability to create a snapshot of my system in seconds, and to restore to any previous snapshot in about a minute.

In a classic install of BTRFS two subvolumes, @ and @home will be created underneath the BTRFS <ROOT_FS>. In /etc/fstab they are mounted to "/" and "/home" respectively. Since I alway took a dated snapshot of both subvolumes at the same time I merged @home into @ and now I only have to snapshot @. Let's say you do "sudo apt update" and notice that 125 packages are available for download. What I do is issue:
sudo /make_snapshot.sh
which is my script to add a snapshot to my collection, do an incremental backup to a second drive, and erase the oldest snapshot on both my local drive and my remote drive. The whole process takes a few seconds. Then I run "sudo apt full-upgrade". If the upgrade proceeds without error I continue on using my system. IF I get an error which cannot be resolved by the usual means I do a rollback to the snapshot I made just before I ran the full-upgrade and then reboot. In about a minute I am back into my system as it was just before I did the upgrade. Then I wait until any problems have been resolved before I repeat the process. IOW, I don't spend 15, 30, 60 minutes or more trying to rollback an errant package or two. I take just a minute or two to restore my system.

I do LOTS of experimentation with my system. Having the ability to undo all my experiments in a minute or two makes the whole process enjoyable.

P.S. - I have only 2 SSD's and 1 HD on this laptop. You system is more complicated then mine but it is a complication forced by the filesystem you are using. Most, if not all of your EXT and FAT32 partitons can be replaced by BTRFS.

[JoHubb]

Thanks for your help, guys.

awk -F\' '/menuentry / {print $2}' /boot/grub/grub.cfg

From that I found that /dev/sdd8 was Sylvia 18.3 (Mint). So this partition can go. /dev/sdd7 was not listed.

udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdd7

This partition was mounted. It has an /etc/fstab file but I am satisfied from the contents of the folders (often unreadable) that this partition can also go.

So I now have two partitions which I am happy to delete. The resulting space will be used for a clean install of 20.04LTS.

I'd like to avoid pitfalls so advice on how best to do all this would be appreciated.

[JoHubb]

[QUOTE=GreyGeek;446659]Old dog, huh? I'm 80 and I've been using BTRFS since 2016. I will NEVER use a distro which doesn't allow me to make BTRFS the root filesystem. Jlittle and Oshunluver have some posts on the BTRFS subforum. I have a few posts there too, but they are getting dated as advances proceed, so, the best source of BTRFS info begins here: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look at this but I am short on time, and my learning curve steepens by the day. My triple boot system, complicated as it may be, works flawlessly. The only reason i ever tweak it is to upgrade something , or install a new version - in this case 20.04 LTS. If BTRFS is going to make my life a lot easier and does not involve dismantling my existing partitions and folders, maybe I will.

Thanks again for your interest.

[JoHubb]

Old dog, huh? I'm 80 and I've been using BTRFS since 2016. I will NEVER use a distro which doesn't allow me to make BTRFS the root filesystem. Jlittle and Oshunluver have some posts on the BTRFS subforum. I have a few posts there too, but they are getting dated as advances proceed, so, the best source of BTRFS info begins here: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look at this but I am short on time, and my learning curve steepens by the day. My triple boot system, complicated as it may be, works flawlessly. The only reason i ever tweak it is to upgrade something, or install a new version - in this case 20.04 LTS. If BTRFS is going to make my life a lot easier and does not involve dismantling my existing partitions and folders, maybe I will.

Thanks again for your interest.

[jglen490]

Thanks for your help, guys.

From that I found that /dev/sdd8 was Sylvia 18.3 (Mint). So this partition can go. /dev/sdd7 was not listed.

udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdd7

This partition was mounted. It has an /etc/fstab file but I am satisfied from the contents of the folders (often unreadable) that this partition can also go.

So I now have two partitions which I am happy to delete. The resulting space will be used for a clean install of 20.04LTS.

I'd like to avoid pitfalls so advice on how best to do all this would be appreciated.

I keep a notebook on what I have installed, some of the more important steps, and what is in my current distro before moving on to the next. So take note of what you now know, and add onto it as you progress to your next install.

[JoHubb]

I keep a notebook on what I have installed, some of the more important steps, and what is in my current distro before moving on to the next. So take note of what you now know, and add onto it as you progress to your next install.

Great idea!

[jlittle]

I keep a notebook ...

After repeated suggestions to do this in this forum, perhaps even from jglen490, I started doing this a few years ago. Almost every time I've been slack and not taken notes I've later regretted it. I use a text file that I copy around, including a git repo that I push to my VPS on linode.

[jglen490]

I've gone old school and use an actual spiral bound notebook and my p***-poor handwriting. I've lost too many computer-based files over the years

[Qqmike]

jglen490, as we seem to often think alike, it is no surprise that I, too, keep notes on 'any new anything'! Building a new PC ... installing and setting up a new Kubuntu OS ... to custom UEFI/BIOS settings. I type it, in LibreOffice Writer, save it in multiple (back-up) places (thumb drives), and actually print a hard copy that goes into a ... Wait for it! ... a Manila folder (you know, Philippines, 1930 'invention'). I refer to such documents all the time. I like the term "notebook." ;-)