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very small system partition with LVM on debian. Is it OK? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 10 months ago by imaradio@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I recently installed debian 12 using debian-12.2.0-arm64-netinst.iso. It is the only OS installed and I used the whole 500GB disk.

I selected something like guided partitioning with separate /home/ using LVM and encryption. Now that I am using my system a bit, I realize that I don't think it ever asked me how big to make the / partition and it is very small. Only 27GB.

Will this be a problem?

Or, is the LVM going to allow the partition to be resized or otherwise take up as much of the space as it requires?

# lsblk
NAME                    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
sda                       8:0    0 476.9G  0 disk  
├─sda1                    8:1    0   512M  0 part  /boot/efi
├─sda2                    8:2    0   488M  0 part  /boot
└─sda3                    8:3    0   476G  0 part  
  └─sda3_crypt          253:0    0 475.9G  0 crypt 
    ├─mycomputer--vg-root     253:1    0  27.9G  0 lvm   /
    ├─mycomputer--vg-swap_1   253:2    0   976M  0 lvm   [SWAP]
    └─mycomputer--vg-home     253:3    0   447G  0 lvm   /home

I tried booting into a live usb to resize the partition using gparted but I couldn't seem to do so.

If I need to reinstall and change something I'd rather do it now than later.

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[-] mhz@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

LVM gives you the ability to downsize and resize without having to worry about partitions boundaries. So, if you find yourself in need for storage you can downsize the home partition and grow the root.

That said, I have debian/i3 INSTALLED ON A 16GB USB with a couple of docker containers and vscodium and it is around 10/14gb usage.

[-] Cwilliams@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

I'm totally going to try that now! I wonder if I could use this to avoid Windows on the terrible computers at my school. Does it boot just like installation media or something?

[-] mhz@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That is why I'm actually doing it, we have a couple of old workstation with Win7 we almost never use at my workplace. I use my portable debian on these machines to practice bash scripting, python and recently docker.

I few thing to consider:

  • use the fastest usb drive you can get, you will be held back by its access/write speed
  • Install the boot loader on the usb drive.
  • you can install 'xrdp' to access remitly using thw windows remote desktop.
  • You will probably find a docker image of things you are interested in, I recently switch from codium (apt) to codercom/code-server docker image, this way I can access vscode from a browser on any worstation on my workplace.
  • Routing can be a bit challenging if your organisation/school use its private intranet, but I set my debain instance (with my phone attached to it in usb tithering mode) to use tinyproxy to connect to the internet from (preferably portable) firefox from any workstation at my workplace.
  • Dont tell my boss.
[-] Cwilliams@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the explanation! I looked into it, and it's actually not possible to boot from a USB drive on my school's computers without an admin password 😢. But thanks anyway!

this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
26 points (96.4% liked)

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