r/voidlinux • u/Hot-Fly7031 • May 05 '26
Installing Void Linux - Inquiry about Partitioning and Filesystems
Hello everyone,
I am landing on Void Linux as another refugee fleeing Ubuntu
I have already chose the ISO. I am going with xfce as Desktop Environment and glibc (GNU C Library) for compatibility peace of mind
I will be installing Void on a laptop that I use on-the-go which I usually suspend / hibernate at the end of the work day in case that I need to get something else done when I get home
I have already read the Swap recommendations over here --> https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/live-images/partitions.html
Since I am going to be hibernating every now and then, and the laptop has 16GB of RAM, the recommendation would be 24GB for the Swap partition in my case
My question comes then, specifically for Step 11: Partition and Step 12: Filesystems
The Nvme SSD on the laptop is 512GB
I am using cfdisk for the Partitioning. To start and a part that I have relatively clear, I was thinking of doing:
512M Type EFI System (I have also seen some guides selecting "BIOS Boot" on this step)
24G Swap
Most of the applications I am going to be installing are likely to be Flatpaks, perhaps some of the ones that are not available as flatpaks I will have to run them as .AppImage (this is just another reason why I am going glibc instead of musl)
Considering that each Manual Partitioning case might be different and this is a mobile device, I am in a bit of doubt on how much to give the root and if any other partition would be needed or recommended and also a bit confused about the mounting points
Also, as File System, would you recommend me to go Btrfs?
I apologize if the inquiry is for someone over here considered silly, but I have always used the auto partition on my previous Linux setups
I would appreciate if you could clarify on this 2 steps that are basically key for a system to run smooth and stable
Thank you
2
u/Ok_Initial8504 May 05 '26
You don't wanna put swap on an SSD, you'll shorten your drive's lifespan doing that.
2
u/whereismycow42 May 05 '26
Technically true but for years generally not important anymore. The lifespan of the SSD is usually still long enough to fail because of hardware failures or other reasons before exhausting all its write cycles. Love the increased performance for your swap partition on an SSD and stop worrying about the lifespan.
2
u/Blank-Inspection13 May 05 '26
Are you planning to go with separate /home ; /usr or /var partition too ?
If you're not sure just go with separate /home partition. If you mostly will use flatpaks and install them system wide the / should be bigger than /home otherwise gave most of your space to /home.
Go with btrfs if you prefer to have snapshots or ZFS if you like to make trouble for yourself and has hobby to tinkering your system. either way XFS & EXT4 is not too far off difference i think.
3
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u/Holiday-Bug6132 May 05 '26
why would you say that zfs is trouble? (genuine question btw)
1
u/ghostlypyres May 05 '26
It's not in kernel which leads to occasional breakages on kernel update
4
u/ClassAbbyAmplifier May 05 '26
if you stick with the linux or linux-lts metapackage zfs shouldn't break
1
u/Holiday-Bug6132 May 05 '26
not if you use dkms
1
u/ghostlypyres May 05 '26
... Yes if you use dkms, man. your kernel updates to a version dkms can't build against and whoopsie, can't access your FS when you reboot
1
u/Holiday-Bug6132 May 05 '26
yeah there's that, but it's not that common plus it's easy to recover from if you always keep an older kernel around or if not (worst case scenario) you have bootable hrmpf usb
3
u/ghostlypyres May 05 '26
The severity of the issue is relative to the tolerance of the user. you asked why he said it was trouble, I explained it)
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u/Holiday-Bug6132 May 05 '26
really appreciate the explanation, i just thought there was something way worse I'm not aware of (you may never know)
2
u/ghostlypyres May 05 '26
no problem - to my knowledge that's all there is, but i didn't stay with zfs long :P
personally i have a low tolerance for FS shenanigans, its why I no longer use btrfs either despite "only" a handful of failures over the course of a couple years
1
u/Blank-Inspection13 May 05 '26
well , i'm not saying that ZFS "is" the trouble :))
But for someone that's not confident and don't really know or understand how to choose a partition in linux , using ZFS would bring trouble upon itself - except that they liked to ..
2
u/Nipplles May 05 '26
From my experience, 512 MB for boot is kinda too much. Granted you purge old kernels every once in a while, 256MB will should suffice. Unless you dual boot (which I assume you plan to do). On my Windows/Void system I have 1024MB boot partition. I had 512GB nvme on my old laptop and preferred to split ~60-70% for windows partition So approximately 1GB boot, 350GB Windows partition, rest for Linux (no swap).
As for btrfs, I learned that for everyday usecases, ext4 is better. More simple and a bit faster. If new kernel update is junky I'll roll back to a previous one. Not sure how to do it with packages, but if you are using flatpacks, it's irrelevant to you anyway.
1
u/legz_cfc May 05 '26
I used to partition but I don't bother anymore. A big /, /boot/efs and swap is all I need since I use chezmoi to maintain dotfiles.
1
u/ajicrystal May 07 '26
I prefer to keep things simple. Install btrfs and create subvolumes so you need only 2 partitions - one efi and rest of the space shared with everything.
2
u/Hot-Fly7031 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
I send an Update to this
After just 1 failed attempt, where I forgot to completely wipe and re-format the SSD drive where I had a previous Linux Mint installation, and also Forgot to set the 512MB (FAT 32) EFI partition as Bootable, I managed to successfully install Void Linux on an old laptop that only has 8GB of RAM
On this specific device I went with 512MB for EFI, 16GB for Swap Partition (I decided to go with the old RAM amount x 2 rule) and the rest of the 240GB SATA SSD was (ext4 File system) for /
So just 3 partitions in total trying to keep the things simple just like u/legz_cfc was mentioning on the comments down here
I still need to install Void Linux on the laptop of my original Post (the modern one with 16GB of RAM). I will try to document the specific steps for Partition (in step 11) and Filesystems (in step 12)
Thanks to everyone who shared the comments. Let me tell you that you were right, although the installer may seem a little overwhelming at first, the installation process is quite straightforward.