Partion related query.

[Chrisgayle]

Hello,
As you know I recently shifted from windows to ubuntu (Linux), so I normally see all this partition things in windows perspective.
So during installation I obviously created basic partition needed like swap (8gb), root (50gb), and efi.
I didn't give any space to home because I find that home is like windows user account space which is "document and downloads" in windows. Normally it needed but if anyone use pc for long time that person doesn't put datas in c drive, I put c drive clean in past because I leave c drive for system use only and put my data everything including downloads in other drive. So same thing I follow in Linux I didn't put any data in home I put it in different drive I created using gparted.
My question is did I do wrong by not giving any partition to "/home" is it compulsory.
I think if /home need some space it takes from root/ because it's location inside root. Like in windows "document and downloads" are inside c drive , so it take space from c drive if needed.
Or am I wrong that /home doesn't take space from root/ if needed.

 

[kc1di]

I think you will run into problems without a /home partition. You will be using the home file on your /(root) partition which may fill up quite fast depending on what you install and do. Most Linux programs use the home directory for some files and a lot of configuration happens there.
These pages may help you think through this.

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/separate-home-partition

Linux Partitioning Recommendations

Learn how to partition your hard drive for Linux linux installation with manuall partitioning

averagelinuxuser.com

All that being said If you choose to go with BTRFS or other file system things change.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

My question is did I do wrong by not giving any partition to "/home" is it compulsory.

You do not need separate partition for /home

The only sane reason why you would want it is if one day you decide to reinstall system you could reuse old /home partition and this way you would save all your personal files.

Without /home on separate partition system reinstall would wipe out your personal files as well.

 

[Chrisgayle]

I think you will run into problems without a /home partition. You will be using the home file on your /(root) partition which may fill up quite fast depending on what you install and do. Most Linux programs use the home directory for some files and a lot of configuration happens there.
These pages may help you think through this.


All that being said If you choose to go with BTRFS or other file system things change.

Thanks for suggesting, but as the given link says it's still debatable that /home need or not.
Right now I didn't give any seperate partition to /home. Please don't think that I ignore your suggestion I understand but right now I want to go with my gut decision.
Let me tell you why I didn't use /home partition.
When I use windows I have 1 SSD(150gb), which I use for system drive only(C:
And I have 3 hdd of 500gb each which I use as raid 5 partition system 2 hdd for strip data and 1 for parity.
So that's why I store all my data in hdd drives only I never use system drive to store any data, C: is only for system use only.
Same thing I want to did in ubuntu too I use my sdd for root, swap, and efi (100gb) so if home need any space it takes from root I think I give enough space to root, and for hdd I don't know about raid in linux I did it in future not that important right now so I use only 1 of my hdd as other drives in ubuntu

 

[Chrisgayle]

You do not need separate partition for /home

The only sane reason why you would want it is if one day you decide to reinstall system you could reuse old /home partition and this way you would save all your personal files.

Without /home on separate partition system reinstall would wipe out your personal files as well.

Thanks I also think that /home is not that important for my use, if I have many accounts and users in my system then definitely it needed to give /home an extra partition but right now I am single user and single account.

Can you tell me that if I update my system by using

apt update && apt -y upgrade && apt -y install curl wget sudo

Then is my data in /home is removed? Or its stay as normal like before update.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@Chrisgayle

The command will not remove anything, here is breakdown of what it does:

apt update will update your local index of available packages in your distro's repo to download, without this step you might end up installing outdated software or missing a chance to install newly added software (by your distro maintainer)

apt upgrade updates all of your installed packages, that's why apt update must be run first to that apt upgrade knows if there are updates available.

apt install installs specific software, in you case it will install curl and wget and sudo

Therefore none of your personal data is removed.

 

[Chrisgayle]

Therefore none of your personal data is removed.

Ok that's a relief, thanks for help sir.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Ok that's a relief, thanks for help sir.

You're welcome, any such commands if they're not clear you can fire up the console and type man apt which will print comprehensive info about the command and all it's options.

man command invokes "manuals" in the terminal, just append any command to it you want to learn more about.

 

[ron.alan]

As far as I know, the /home partition is needed because many apps have their configuration files located there. I don't know what would happen if an app tried to write its config file and wasn't able to. My advice is install /home, you would probably be headed for trouble without it.

Now making it a separate partition is optional. Some people like it because when reinstalling the OS from scratch you won't lose any of your config options. I have never installed it as a separate partition.

 

[kc1di]

The reason that I suggested a /home is because with out it you are relying on a home folder in your /(root) directory which is ok as long as you give / enough disc space. You said it was 50 gigs with at 20 to 30 gigs is going to be for / (root) and that only leaves you with 20 or so gigs for your home file. That's not a lot these days. good luck thought and enjoy!

 

[Chrisgayle]

As far as I know, the /home partition is needed because many apps have their configuration files located there. I don't know what would happen if an app tried to write its config file and wasn't able to. My advice is install /home, you would probably be headed for trouble without it.

Now making it a separate partition is optional. Some people like it because when reinstalling the OS from scratch you won't lose any of your config options. I have never installed it as a separate partition.

I also install /home but I didn't give it a partition. It just inside root. Maybe I give the space little low I will increase it.

 

[Chrisgayle]

The reason that I suggested a /home is because with out it you are relying on a home folder in your /(root) directory which is ok as long as you give / enough disc space. You said it was 50 gigs with at 20 to 30 gigs is going to be for / (root) and that only leaves you with 20 or so gigs for your home file. That's not a lot these days. good luck thought and enjoy!

Thanks sir,
Can u help me in one thing.
My SSD is 150gb I am ok to give it completely to system, for my personal drive I use extra hdd 500gb.
I didn't give /home seperate partition because I think afterall it lives under root so if I give root enough space then why I need to give home completely different space.
I am now shift all the memory of my SSD (150gb) to root (except some space that goes to swap and efi) what you think is that enough

if not then how much I need to give to /home if I give separate partition.

 

[bob466]

The first thing you do when switching to Linux is...forget everything windoze...Linux isn't windoze.

You don't need to create any partitions...when you install your Distro (mine is Mint) select "Erase Disk and Install Linux".

The installer will create two partitions...the Boot Partition and the Root Partition as shown here...

This is my 500GB SSD...everything is in the Root Partition...so there's no need to create one for Home or Swap.
Swap is now a 2GB File not a Partition...been that way for a long time because you can add more memory these days.
A 150GB SSD isn't really enough as it would fill up fast...go for a bigger Drive...that's why I have a 500GB SSD and I also have External Drives too...I've been doing it this way for nearly 9 years with no problems. Hope this helps.

This is the Linux File System...

As you can see everything is in Root.

 

[Condobloke]

I would agree with @bob466,......my 250GB drive below

""As you can see everything is in Root."".....probably the main reason that is done, is for Safety/Security

I also have external drives which carry a multitude of files,

In addition to Timeshift, I use Rescuezilla, for a monthly backup of the above /dev/nvme0n1p2. Take around 6 or 7 minutes and then another 4 minutes to Verify it.

 

[Chrisgayle]

The first thing you do when switching to Linux is...forget everything windoze...Linux isn't windoze.

I think complete forget the past is not that easy for me.

150GB SSD isn't really enough as it would fill up fast...go for a bigger Drive...that's why I have a 500GB SSD and I also have External Drives too...I've been doing it this way for nearly 9 years with no problems. Hope this helps.

Well I spend more then 10 years in window with 100gb c: drive (root in Linux perspective)
Still it fill only upto 70 to 80gb Max.
Still it not enough even ubuntu uses less memory then window. I am not saying you are wrong, but it really shocking to me that 150gb just for system use (without any personal files and data) is not enough.

This is the Linux File System...
View attachment 18115
As you can see everything is in Root.

Yes that's why I say if home is under root then give home seperate partition is not so meaningful to me, instead I give all memory to root if home need and space it takes from root (if there is any free space available then)

 

[osprey]

@Chrisgale, according to your post #12 you have a 150G disk for the system, and 500G for data.

The installation on the 150G disk will create a /home directory. But since you are using the 500G disk for your data, then you can use that as your /home. See below.

Since the 500G is a separate disk, it will of necessity be a separate partition in the system.

If you want all your personal data on the 500G disk, one approach is to configure the 500G into a single partition, configured with a filesystem like ext4, and then mount that partition (which is now effectively the whole 500G disk), onto the /home directory in the /root partition.

If you do that and configure the mounting in the /etc/fstab file so that it mounts at boot, then you will have a seamless system when it boots up with 150G for the root partition and 500G for the /home partition.

A new moderately or fully featured installation can take anywhere from about 10G to 20G of the root partition, so there's plenty of room there when you start. If you are going to install lots of large programs or run heaps of virtual machines, then that can start to fill up the 150G, but without such demands, the 150G will work.

You may need some help with the configuring if you take this route if the installation already exists and you wish to alter it.

However, it is often possible to create this arrangement I have described in the installation process itself by choosing to do "custom partitioning" and then specifying the 150G as /root and the 500G disk as the /home directory and the installer will do the necessary work by creating the mounting without the user's intervention beyond installing so the machine will boot into the intended configuration.

 

[Chrisgayle]

@Chrisgale, according to your post #12 you have a 150G disk for the system, and 500G for data.

The installation on the 150G disk will create a /home directory. But since you are using the 500G disk for your data, then you can use that as your /home. See below.

Since the 500G is a separate disk, it will of necessity be a separate partition in the system.

If you want all your personal data on the 500G disk, one approach is to configure the 500G into a single partition, configured with a filesystem like ext4, and then mount that partition (which is now effectively the whole 500G disk), onto the /home directory in the /root partition.

If you do that and configure the mounting in the /etc/fstab file so that it mounts at boot, then you will have a seamless system when it boots up with 150G for the root partition and 500G for the /home partition.

A new installation can take anywhere from about 10G to 20G of the root partition, so there's plenty of room there when you start. If you are going to install lots of large programs or run heaps of virtual machines, then that can start to fill up the 150G, but without such demands, the 150G will work.

You may need some help with the configuring if you take this route if the installation already exists and you wish to alter it.

However, it is often possible to create this arrangement I have described in the installation process itself by choosing to do "custom partitioning" and then specifying the 150G as /root and the 500G disk as the /home directory and the installer will do the necessary work by creating the mounting without the user's intervention beyond installing so the machine will boot into the intended configuration.

Thanks sir,
This is also a nice way you suggest to arrange the partition, but I already set my system in 150gb as root, I will use your described way in future of any problem arrise due regarding low memory.
I always save all my data in external drives so for me delete everything and make clean install again is no problem (except time consuming).

But I didn't still understand why seperate partition for /home even it lives under root. If it needed then why only home, why not also give separate partition to /usr, /etc, /opt, /lib, /boot, /sbin, /bin, /var, /mnt, /media, and /tmp. They also need seperate partition in the same way.

 

[osprey]

Thanks sir,
This is also a nice way you suggest to arrange the partition, but I already set my system in 150gb as root, I will use your described way in future of any problem arrise due regarding low memory.
I always save all my data in external drives so for me delete everything and make clean install again is no problem (except time consuming).

But I didn't still understand why seperate partition for /home even it lives under root. If it needed then why only home, why not also give separate partition to /usr, /etc, /opt, /lib, /boot, /sbin, /bin, /var, /mnt, /media, and /tmp. They also need seperate partition in the same way.

A separate partition for /home on an ordinary home user's system is unnecessary, but some users have good reasons for making a separate partition as mentioned in posts above.

The configuration described in post #16 where the 500G could be made to be the /home partition, mounted on the /home directory under /root, would need to be a separate partition because it's a separate disk. That's the way it is with standard partitioning. It would be seamless to the user once set up.

It's possible to have a different more complex arrangement where partitions can be altered and manipulated on working systems by using the LVM software, or the btrfs filesystem or similar, but the post #16 is referring to standard partitioning so I haven't gone into those complexities.

 

[charlie.corder]

Thanks sir,
This is also a nice way you suggest to arrange the partition, but I already set my system in 150gb as root, I will use your described way in future of any problem arrise due regarding low memory.
I always save all my data in external drives so for me delete everything and make clean install again is no problem (except time consuming).

But I didn't still understand why seperate partition for /home even it lives under root. If it needed then why only home, why not also give separate partition to /usr, /etc, /opt, /lib, /boot, /sbin, /bin, /var, /mnt, /media, and /tmp. They also need seperate partition in the same way.

@Chrisgayle
Welcome to the forum!
As a former Windows user {from about 1993 until about 2016} I can understand why you are asking the questions you ask.
Please do not take offense at what I am going to write here.
Most Windows users, when they move to Linux, do not understand why Linux does things the way they do. That includes me, you and most others leaving Windows and going to Linux.
It takes time, and learning the system, to actually leave Windows behind.
The good news is; that once we learn how Linux works, we can see how much better it is than Windows.
I know that it is difficult to make the transition from Windows to Linux. However, once you stop trying to use Linux the same way you do Windows, you will make the transition much smoother and easier.
Please believe me {I'm 89 years old} when I say that, once you learn how Linux operates, you may never see the need to look at Windows again. {It would take me as long to learn Windows 11 as it did Linux at first}.
Once again, welcome to the forum. There are lots of fine people here who are willing to help.
Old Geezer,
Tango Charlie

 

[f33dm3bits]

But I didn't still understand why seperate partition for /home even it lives under root. If it needed then why only home, why not also give separate partition to /usr, /etc, /opt, /lib, /boot, /sbin, /bin, /var, /mnt, /media, and /tmp. They also need seperate partition in the same way.

If you ever need to reinstall your system and you have a separate home partition, then you can just tell the installer to not format that but to reuse it. That way you won't have to copy back and forth all your personal data when doing a reinstall, on servers using separate partitions for /usr, /var, /etc and /opt can be useful but it doesn't give any advantages on a desktop system.