Where O Where?

[zukester]

OK. Searched online and here. For a long time.

Since I got back into Linux a few months ago, I was trying to get a Windows program I use to work in Wine. Over three HDDs, one SSD, two regular HDDs, I have put in

1. Feren OS
2. Mint
3. Manjaro
4. Ubuntu

How do I find which one is where? I want to delete all but Ubuntu but, when I am in any one, how do I find out where it is installed to? All I see is "bin boot dev etc home" in any file manager, gparted, disks, etc. in each HDD. I want to delete, clear a bunch of space and stick to Ubuntu, but I have no idea what is where. It is all just ext4 partitions. Is there a way?

Thanks,
Zukester

 

[KGIII]

You can use GParted to clear out the various partitions.

If you're in such a state, it's probably in your best interest to boot to a live USB/DVD and clear out all the partitions (backing up your personal information first) and then doing a full fresh installation on your disk of choice - taking up the whole disk to allow you room for storage and expansion.

See (if needed):

How do I 'Boot to USB'? (Or CD/DVD, if Such is Available) • Linux Tips

To install Linux, you need to be able to boot to USB (or CD/DVD). This article will help you find the key to boot to USB (or CD/DVD).

linux-tips.us

How Do I Install Linux (A General Guide) • Linux Tips

Today, I will try to answer one of the most common questions asked by the newcomer to Linux; “How do I install Linux”

linux-tips.us

 

[osprey]

Each distro will have an /etc/issue or /etc/os-release file which will tell you what it is. One way to do it is to mount each partition successively from a live usb and read the file with cat.

 

[zukester]

That actually was an idea I had. I tried to install gparted in this Ubuntu and the error message said it was not for Ubuntu 22. So I looked in disks. It sorta helps and I am currently changing permissions on 5.8TB on s drive which has a Linux on it, not much else, but I cannot paste things to it to back up. That will fix the backup part and allow me to format stuff. As a photo guy, turns out I have over 30,000 to back up. Many sellable. I guess out of all of those, Ubuntu was the best one.

That said, no more multiple partitions for me, Two-one OS, one large for storage. I cannot tell what went where after trying a distro. They read by different names in different apps, BIOS, etc.

 

[wizardfromoz]

(Wizard appears in a puff of smoke, trips over unlabelled Distros, executes several double backward somersaults with a half pike before regaining his balance, receives 9's from the assembled judges, bows, as though he had planned the manoeuvres)

@zukester G'day from DownUnder, young'un (I am 65) and welcome to linux.org

On @osprey 's post at #3, while I use, in my case

cat /etc/*release

on numerous occasions, sometimes for getting bug reporting addresses, that command does not reveal what partition you are on, which is one of the things you are looking for.

Simple for that is the following, and I will include the output from the distro I am currently on, performing updates.

df

[email protected]:~$ df
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev             8096752        0   8096752   0% /dev
tmpfs            1628752     2192   1626560   1% /run
/dev/sdb12      20466388 12005952   7395476  62% /
tmpfs            8143744        0   8143744   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs               5120        4      5116   1% /run/lock
tmpfs            8143744        0   8143744   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb1         523244   338236    185008  65% /boot/efi
tmpfs            1628748       20   1628728   1% /run/user/1000

There, you can see

/dev/sdb12 20466388 12005952 7395476 62% /

... where the forward slash at the end tells me I am currently on /dev/sdb12 (on my SSD) , where Mint's root partition is.

You can do the same with each of your distros if you are multibooting, and note them down.

I tried to install gparted in this Ubuntu and the error message said it was not for Ubuntu 22.

That is because you tried to install GParted from an outside source, and the package you downloaded does not support Ubuntu 22.04 'Jammy Jellyfish'. True?

GParted and Synaptic Package Manager are both available in your Repositories, you can establish that with

apt policy gparted synaptic

and then install them with

sudo apt -y install gparted synaptic

or if you prefer the GUI method, you can search them from your Software Center and install from there.

With GParted, you can label your root partitions, and then they will appear as same in your File Manager, making them easy to identify. The following snapshots illustrate this and are taken from my Jammy (once I reboot into it).

WIZARD'S GPARTED

and

WIZARD'S NAUTILUS (AKA FILES)

You can guess from the above screenshots both that I plan ahead, and also when I am putting on a new LInux distro, I use 20 GiB for root (shows as 21 GB in Nautilus). So if I didn't label the distros through GParted, I would have a large bunch of entries on the left showing as

21 GB Volume

which would make it near impossible to navigate (I run 78 or so Distros).

@zukester you could also give us a bit of the output from

cat /etc/os-release

in particular the part near the bottom which says

UBUNTU_CODENAME=

Does it say Jammy or other?

Thanks

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[BigBadBeef]

OK. Searched online and here. For a long time.

Since I got back into Linux a few months ago, I was trying to get a Windows program I use to work in Wine. Over three HDDs, one SSD, two regular HDDs, I have put in

1. Feren OS
2. Mint
3. Manjaro
4. Ubuntu

How do I find which one is where? I want to delete all but Ubuntu but, when I am in any one, how do I find out where it is installed to? All I see is "bin boot dev etc home" in any file manager, gparted, disks, etc. in each HDD. I want to delete, clear a bunch of space and stick to Ubuntu, but I have no idea what is where. It is all just ext4 partitions. Is there a way?

Thanks,
Zukester

Goodness gracious me, what a mess! What I'm trying to understand is why did you even install them at all? The whole point of a live distro is to try if the intended works for you or not, no need to make a distro smoothie on your hard drive.

wizard told you how to put some order into that chaos of yours, I would not presume to dispute his authority on the matter, but I don't think distro stacking is the way to go.

I am going to assume you have plenty of hard drive space to spare, therefore I would recommend a virtual machine with Windows. If its a game, you can arrange to have a gpu passthrough.

Or even try bottles: https://usebottles.com/
One of the coolest things I've seen on linux, but if only I had the hard drive space to spare to have it.

 

[CrazedNerd]

If i were you, i would just try to single out one drive by looking at "disks" while you are booted into one of them. Once you have learned what-is-what, then i would make choices, customize, erase things, learn how to customize partitions during install.

All I see is "bin boot dev etc home" in any file manager, gparted, disks, etc. in each HDD

Ah, the part in quotes are just the necessary directories in a linux operatimg system. Bin is for the basic command line utilities (like cp and mv) and perhaps more, boot is for boot time configuration and you should be careful about that folder, etc is for configuration of a lot of the basic software that comes with linux, home is just the home folder with Documents/Downloads/Music and some configuration files for bash. Also, some linux programs you download automatically install through the home folder.

I don't know much about the dev folder. Your file manager is just a GUI utility to look at and manipulate files, gparted is a more complex/advanced version of disks. Basically, everything needs a partition before file manager and the command line can recognize it...knowing that will save you a lot of trouble. Drives need to be formatted the correct wsy in order to boot.

 

[zukester]

<<Each distro will have an /etc/issue or /etc/os-release file which will tell you what it is. One way to do it is to mount each partition successively from a live usb and read the file with cat.>>
Now that was not something it appears I would have found in a search online. Very valuable into to have. Thanks so much.
Building the house, so sitting in the dark, typing. Need ceilings ad overhead lights. Only the keyboard is lit up. Hard.

 

[zukester]

Soooo....fast, temporary update.

Was copying/moving files to delete and make space, no progress bar in Ubuntu for that. Just a popup when done. So I did a little at a time, thought it maybe was too little, grabbed larger amount, o progress ba, waited a very log time, browser froze,. searched for task manager i Ubuntu to kill it, restart it, never found it, tried to reboot, got a post BIOS message about a visualization something or other in the bios, had to literally use my phone to search it, did what they said, Ubuntu never booted, no other OS in here did either, including Manjaro, so I happened to have Manjaro on a flash drive, installed that on the SSD drive that came with this and formatted it first, so plenty of room there. Currently resuming copying/moving 300GB of files, with a progress bar in Thunar.

You guys are awesome, helpful. Going to keep at it, will update when copying is done. For whatever reason, the 5.8TB drive is 99% empty, but will not let me copy because 'there is not enough space". It is nearly new and empty. ZI checked it, plenty of room (over 5.7TB empty!) and said "Continue anyways". It is 2 hours from finishing.

500GB SSD, only Manjaro on it now, no Windows anything (which I never used)
4TB HDD (full)
16TB (two five plus TB partitions and a 4), mostly empty
I have space.....just have to move and back up. Maybe stick with Manjaro, not sure.

Thanks Again.
Talk Soon, from the cold south
Bobby Z. (aka "Zucchini")

 

[CrazedNerd]

Now that was not something it appears I would have found in a search online. Very valuable into to have. Thanks so much.

Reading about computers and using them are two completely different things, that's something that linux has taught me in a fairly brutal fashion...

 

[zukester]

Yeah. My son is a master, high end geek who built the Calstate online school, but not helpful to me as of late, not using Linux. I noticed there are those who know and those who can teach...they are not often the same. If he were here in TN I would have him sit and do it. When the house is done, I guess.

 

[Brickwizard]

I noticed there are those who know and those who can teach...they are not often the same

We have an old saying in the UK
"Those that can, Do
those who Can't Teach"

 

[CrazedNerd]

We have an old saying in the UK
"Those that can, Do
those who Can't Teach"

Yeah that saying is everywhere, people in the US say it too and it really comes out when you start reading things that people write on computers/coding: it helps, but it's frustrating because you can't always make things work the way you want them to.