With Linux installations I like to either have my home folder on a physically separate disc or at least on a separate partition of a hard disc or SSD.
This way operating system files are separated from user data files. This makes upgrading at a later date easier.
My Ubuntu 24.04 works fine with this setup with the root file system on one physical drive and home on another.
For days now I have been trying to get this to work with my Raspberry Pi4 and 64 bit Bookworm.
What I have done is documented below.
I already had setup my RPi4 to boot from a SSD USB drive - I had Bullseye running fine from USB with no SD card needed. At this stage I had boot and root partitions only
Moving onto Bookworm I thought I would partition the SSD to have separate system and home partitions
1.I flash a new copy of Bookworm onto a new SD card.
2.It boots fine with no USB SSD connected.
3.I change it so that I have to log in each time as I prefer to run Linux this way.
4.I plug in the USB SSD - RPi OS finds it fine and mounts it in media.
5.I use the SD card copier to copy the SD Card onto the SSD.
6.Shutdown the RPi and remove the SD card
7.Re-boot from the USB drive – all fine but its using all of the 500GB SSD drive.
8.As i need to umount the SSD Drive I shutdown, put in the SD Card and re-boot from the SD Card – all fine.
9.Run up Gparted its seeing both the SD Card and the SSD Drive OK but the SSD Drive is mounted.
10.Umount the SSD drive.
11.Shrink the single 500GB partition to 150 GB, create a new partition in the remaining 350GB of space and format it EXT4.
12.Shutdown, take the SD Card out and re-boot everything OK. Boots fine.
13.I have a look at the SSD with GParted, 3 partitions, sda1 is a boot, sda2 is the system partition and sda3 an unused partition – all fine.
14.Use Gparted to get the UUIDs of the 3 partitions.
15.Make a backup of fstab – just for safety.
16.Use sudo nano fstab to edit the fstab file.
I notice its using PARTUUIDs and not UUIDs – I want to alter the PARTUUIDs to UUIDs.
17.I prefer to use UUIDs and not PARTUUIDs
18.Use sudo blkid to get the UUIDs of the two existing partitions
19.I edit my fstab fileto use UUIDs and not PARTUUIDs
20.Still booting fine. I now have 3 partitions and can mount the new 3rd partition OK.
21.I copy the existing home directory onto the new partition. (sda3)
22.I rename the existing home directory oldhome
23.I now edit my fstab file to have all three partitions mounted at boot.
Below my edited fstab file.
I have checked many times the UUIDs are correct.
UUID=0813-6690 /boot/firmware vfat defaults 0 2
UUID=505d11f6-5c94-4cd9-82c7-8b295d9e5b2b / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=970889f5-981f-4a29-818c-8e1f666b1530 /home ext4 defaults 0 1
No my problems begin.
I re-boot and at first all seems fine
I get a log on window.
I enter my username and password
After a few seconds the log on screen appears with no error message.
I just cannot get logged on I end up in an endless logon message.
(if I deliberately enter a wrong logon ID or password it gives an error message.)
I just cannot see what I am doing wrong – I have done something very similar in Ubuntu 24.04 and it worked fine.
Any advice would be appreciated
Dave
This way operating system files are separated from user data files. This makes upgrading at a later date easier.
My Ubuntu 24.04 works fine with this setup with the root file system on one physical drive and home on another.
For days now I have been trying to get this to work with my Raspberry Pi4 and 64 bit Bookworm.
What I have done is documented below.
I already had setup my RPi4 to boot from a SSD USB drive - I had Bullseye running fine from USB with no SD card needed. At this stage I had boot and root partitions only
Moving onto Bookworm I thought I would partition the SSD to have separate system and home partitions
1.I flash a new copy of Bookworm onto a new SD card.
2.It boots fine with no USB SSD connected.
3.I change it so that I have to log in each time as I prefer to run Linux this way.
4.I plug in the USB SSD - RPi OS finds it fine and mounts it in media.
5.I use the SD card copier to copy the SD Card onto the SSD.
6.Shutdown the RPi and remove the SD card
7.Re-boot from the USB drive – all fine but its using all of the 500GB SSD drive.
8.As i need to umount the SSD Drive I shutdown, put in the SD Card and re-boot from the SD Card – all fine.
9.Run up Gparted its seeing both the SD Card and the SSD Drive OK but the SSD Drive is mounted.
10.Umount the SSD drive.
11.Shrink the single 500GB partition to 150 GB, create a new partition in the remaining 350GB of space and format it EXT4.
12.Shutdown, take the SD Card out and re-boot everything OK. Boots fine.
13.I have a look at the SSD with GParted, 3 partitions, sda1 is a boot, sda2 is the system partition and sda3 an unused partition – all fine.
14.Use Gparted to get the UUIDs of the 3 partitions.
15.Make a backup of fstab – just for safety.
16.Use sudo nano fstab to edit the fstab file.
I notice its using PARTUUIDs and not UUIDs – I want to alter the PARTUUIDs to UUIDs.
17.I prefer to use UUIDs and not PARTUUIDs
18.Use sudo blkid to get the UUIDs of the two existing partitions
19.I edit my fstab fileto use UUIDs and not PARTUUIDs
20.Still booting fine. I now have 3 partitions and can mount the new 3rd partition OK.
21.I copy the existing home directory onto the new partition. (sda3)
22.I rename the existing home directory oldhome
23.I now edit my fstab file to have all three partitions mounted at boot.
Below my edited fstab file.
I have checked many times the UUIDs are correct.
UUID=0813-6690 /boot/firmware vfat defaults 0 2
UUID=505d11f6-5c94-4cd9-82c7-8b295d9e5b2b / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=970889f5-981f-4a29-818c-8e1f666b1530 /home ext4 defaults 0 1
No my problems begin.
I re-boot and at first all seems fine
I get a log on window.
I enter my username and password
After a few seconds the log on screen appears with no error message.
I just cannot get logged on I end up in an endless logon message.
(if I deliberately enter a wrong logon ID or password it gives an error message.)
I just cannot see what I am doing wrong – I have done something very similar in Ubuntu 24.04 and it worked fine.
Any advice would be appreciated
Dave
Statistics: Posted by djcleckie — Thu Sep 04, 2025 11:10 am