Installing without formatting the whole disk

Aurora
1

I have a 2TB SSD and want to replace my existing installation with Aurora. From a backup perspective it is possible to just install it and all data gets deleted. Then I could restore 1.2 TB or so data.However, I like to install without reformatting and restoring…

After having splitted /dev/sda1 into /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 (In reality it is /dev/nvme0n1 but /dev/sda.. is easier to type) I have

  • /dev/sda1 with 700 Mib
  • /dev/sda2 with 1400 Mib
  • /dev/sda3 BTRFS LUKS with almost 2TB

I have created subvols

  • var
  • home
  • root

and want to mount

  • /dev/sda1 as /boot/efi
  • /dev/sda2 as /boot
  • subvol var as /var/
  • subvol home as /var/home
  • subvol root as /sysroot

I get an error that I need to mount something at /.

In which way do I have to mount the subvol roott? / is composefs in a running system. Shall I mount subvol root at /?

(This is currently done on an external disk to test things first.)

2

I reply myself. Perhaps I just mount subvol root at / for installation. Will try this path.

3

It looks like installing without reformatting is not possible. The manual partitioning screen wants me to turn on Reformat. Sigh…

4

I also started a discussion about it in fedora discussion and I got a very good link from @pg-tips , namely It's difficult to reformat a btrfs partition/subvolume in the installer - Fedora Discussion which helped me finding a way to got Aurora installed without needing to delete my existing btrfs subvols.

Here what I did

1 Like
5

Switch to Aurora worked fine. Very happy.

I reported in more detail here