How do I create partitions on debian 12.5 to install other distros in the same M.2 SSD?

merompetehla@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 15 points –

I'd like to install linux mint xfce 21.3 and xubuntu 24.04 alongside the already present debian 12.5, but I don't know if I have to create the partitions before installing or if I'm guided to create the partitions while installing.

On debian 12.5 there are 3 partitions already: /boot/efi, /boot and nvme0 without a mount point, which I encrypted. I used lsblk to get this information.

Incidentally I ask: in the encrypted partition I reserved 50% of space for my home directory, created LV (logical volumes) for /var (9.2GiB) and /tmp (2 GiB) as well. Can I edit the size of these LV?

The other question is, am I installing too many distros on the same computer? CPU is an Intel Core i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz

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What's your objective here? What is it you want to do with all these Linux distros?

I'm afraid that you won't get an answer from OP. Based on the last couple of days, and OP's many posts, we've noted that OP has only rarely answered questions. I don't think it will be different this time.

So, while I can't read their intentions, I will provide my thoughts.

OP is a newb. And has asked this community many different (but somehow related) questions.

OP was on Xubuntu, but experienced a problem. After they saw that the solution involved more steps than they're willing to take, they instead opted to switch distros. After prompting the community for some input and inspiration, they decided to go for Debian with Xfce. However, they've experienced a bunch of things since that have made them second-guess their choice; Xubuntu was perhaps better at some things AND Linux Mint Xfce was actually the popular pick in their earlier community prompt.

So, in order to resolve their second-guessing, they intend to put them all to the test simultaneously though multi-boot before finalizing their decision.

Sorry, but I don't think that's a pretty positive and constructive attitude to have in a thread where someone is asking for help. Especially if they are newbies.

In fact, OP has answered my reply.

time to just let them use distrobox

I honestly suspect the main issue is related to either the opinionatedness of Ubuntu compared to Debian or the absence of Snap. Why do you think that Distrobox will help them with their choice?

compare

Would installing them in virtual machines be a good option for you?

It would allow you to test them without having to go through all the trouble of repartitioning and risking to lose your data.

Your CPU is okay, for testing instead I recommend installing virt-manager qemu qemu-kvm. The packages on Debian are called a bit differently.

You can also just install XFCE on Debian, it doesnt interfere with GNOME.

btrfs with subvolumes. I have fedora gnome, fedora kde, debian 12 kde, arch mate as subvolumes on the same disk and of course a home subvolume that they all mount on boot, so all my data is always available.

Get a second ssd, I'm sure your PC has a placeholder for it. Normally, I'd say that you simply resize your main / partition using gparted, however, because it's encrypted this might be dicey. Hence, get a second SSD.

As long as it was encrypted with LUKS headers and not a raw cryptsetup resize is totally capable of resizing partitions/LVs.

Yes. You can use lvresize to reduce the size of your logical volumes.

You first need to shrink the filesystems using e.g. resize2fs (exact command depends on filesystem). See the manpage for details, but for shrinking the filesystem it needs to be unmounted, so you'll need to do this from a live usb or something.

After that you can use lvresize to resize the logical volumes. Pro tip: You can shrink the filesystem to e.g. 20 GiB, but shrink the partition to 30 GiB, just to make sure you're not cutting off the filesystem due to some slight error or inexactness, and then afterwards run resize2fs again to resize the filesystem back to fill the whole partition, which it does by default if you don't specify any size.

Also note, since you have LVM-on-LUKS, when you boot into a live cd, you will need to first use cryptsetup to decrypt your partition, and then run vgscan to make lvm find the unecrypted partition.