[SOLVED] which btrfs / subvolumes mixed with ext4 are needed?

JZL240I-U · 11-10-2014, 11:43 AM

Okay, I didn't find the ideal description for this subject, I'll just outline the problem at (not too much, I hope

) length:

I have multi-boot environments organized over several disks like this, all as ext4 file sytems:

Code:

sdx1: /boot 
sdx2: swap
sdx3: FreeBSD
sdx4: extended
sdx5: openSUSE 12.3
sdx6: fedora
sdx7: mint
... {lots more like those, you get the picture}
sdxy: openSUSE 13.2

Now here it gets tricky: the new SUSE wants to use btrfs for / and XFS for /home. At the first glance no problem. SUSE may re-format its root-partition to btrfs and gets an extra one for /home to try out (encrypted) XFS. I also assigned sdx1 as its /boot.

Can all be done in "expert-mode" during the very easy install *haha, me an expert, what's next

*

BUT: during the setup for btrfs it suggests subvolumes for btrfs [accept | remove], in particular something like "/boot/pc386/bios" and "/boot/pc386/uefi" and "/home" (besides /var /opt /log /<you-name-it>...).

Must / should / need these three be removed? I want those ext4 (/boot) and XFS (/home) partitions in working order, particularly after also installing the newest GRUB2 in the MBR. I don't want to cripple the system either. SUSE's documentation on their site doesn't yet extend to 13.2 in this regard. Suggestions, explanations, descriptions of experiences, etc. will be highly appreciated.

JZL240I-U · 11-27-2014, 01:51 AM

Oh dear. Nobody knows either? Well. I found this:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/opensuse-13-2.html

Scroll down to "Installation" in that post to read the details.

In short, delete the subvolume entries for those directories, where you want to mount different (from your "/"-btrfs) file systems and all should be well. At least I tried it that way and it worked up to now...

JZL240I-U · 01-13-2015, 01:22 AM

...but it killed the snapper tool in so much as GRUB won't offer any old snapshots to boot into. After sober reflection (and a shortlived bug notice in the SUSE bugzilla

) it is clear that it can't do it -- the kernel(s) reside below /boot and are part of the roll-back process when booting (permanently) into a snapshot. So -- suboptimal setup. Will be changed to the SUSE defaults with the next release. Hope this helps any interested parties

.