Debian Bullseye install with BTRFS Subvolumes

In this video I go over the steps to install Debian Bullseye with BTRFS subvolumes and explain how the default subvolume configuration does not work with Timeshift. I also explain how to achieve this by changing the root subvolume name from @rootfs to just @. In a later video, I will go over the snapshotting solution I have settled on, but for today, I just want to get it installed.
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[@jongeduard]

Thanks for the video. Of course just switching away to a tty, unmounting, modifying and than remounting is the answer. 7:26 "Just be shure to copy the contents": We have the btrfs snapshot command for that. Very simple. :)

[@stevecorinthian]

Thanks - followed these instructions, very helpful. To rename @rootfs to @, just type "mv @rootfs @" while in the /target folder during that part of the tutorial.

[@pporrio]

Also put 'subvol=@' in the line for / and 'subvol=@home' in the line for /home in fstab to make it work with timeshift.

[@deliriumcode]

Okay, we are now waiting for that snapper-gui video! ;)

[@robbyred9895]

Thanks, this video did help a lot. I used your instructions to install btrfs along with Debian Testing (bookworm). It worked fine for me except the space_cache option. Debian Testing (bookworm) currently uses the newer kernel 5.16 which contains a more recent version of btrfs. This more recent version of btrfs does not support the sole use of the option space_cache. Instead you must specify the space_cache version along with that option. The option space_cache=v2 did the trick for me. So that could be something to consider in the future.

[@linuxdabbler]

Thanks for the tip! I haven't tried this with bookworm yet. Duely noted.

[@lilith1504]

Holy sister, tysm, I just re-installed my root disk to btrfs by your option in fstab.

[@WolfRites]

space_cache=v2 is used by default, if you don't specify.

[@colbybraden]

Really good info. Can't wait to dive into btrfs.

[@KennyBentley7]

Excellent and helpful video. I like your accent, and especially love how it sounds when you say "bullseye". ;) I'm actually adopting this guide to help me set up Gentoo on btrfs, with some obvious modifications. This would be a whole lot more helpful if you could explain the mount options and why you use them. The compress one is obvious, and I did a little research and lzo doesn't seem to impact performance, and I read what the noatime one does, but I'm not sure exactly what it does or how it increases performance. I have no idea what the space_cache does, though. It would also help to know why you chose those mount options and what other options are available, without getting too overwhelming because I'm sure there are a lot of them. Thanks for a great and informative video.

[@sohrobby]

This video was cool thank you. The only thing I wish you would have done differently is by adding more context to what you were doing and explaining why we had to have a different directory structure to begin with.

[@BrentWeatherallBadweather]

Really nice content and great instructions. Keep up the productions!

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

This all looks interesting but I'm just a plain linux guy that uses the standard partition install stuff. While I don't actively use Debian as it were I do use MX on one box and it is a standard install as I was lazy that day and just hit install... lol Kinda like you New Corner of the world look and remember the Tardis is expandable... :-) Oh! Congrats again on the "It's a Boy:".... :-D Thanks for the video LD! LLAP

[@Taribarti]

Thanks! Now I can use btrsf with timeshift in Bullseye

[@joseffistus3058]

Thank you very much. This helped a lot.

[@WC1376C22]

That's what I get for not having alerts enabled. Congrats dad! I just had a mirrored BTRFS crash because I was not paying attention and did not add more space in time, lessons learned the hard way. This video was better than your first Deb/BTRFS one.

[@linuxdabbler]

@WC1376C. Hopefully you can salvage your array, or at least pull the data you need off of it from a live rescue disk. Thank you. I was much more confident making this video than the last btrfs video.

[@WC1376C22]

@@linuxdabbler What I meant to say and how it typed out...two different things. The other video was Great, in fact I made an install cheat text doc from your video for my installs. I had the opportunity to recover from FSTab but truly lacked the know how. There are many vids out there about this but they all kind of glance over the exact steps (barney). Now I will have to pull the drives and get what I need off of them, then reinstall. Keep the great videos coming! Edit: BTW this happened while I was installing Win10 in Virtual Machines...Microsoft strikes again.

[@WC1376C22]

@@linuxdabbler one question, ( @home /home ) have you tried to to direct fstab to use another drive? i.e. home on a separate UUID.

[@linuxdabbler]

@WC1376C. I used to install Linux with my home folder on a separate drive formatted to ext4. This was back when I had a 240gb ssd and a huge music and movie collection and no NAS. If you are looking to do this with btrfs, you can select the separate drive during the manual partitioning part of the expert install, assign it to /home, have it format to btrfs, and the installer should make a subvolume for it. You can check this by doing the same thing I did by bringing up a shell. If it doesn't, you can perform the same task as I did with the root drive, just make sure the UUID for /home is correct in the fstab file.

[@WC1376C22]

@@linuxdabbler Yep, I figured. I haven't mastered ProxMox yet. this is what I was planning, I just wasn't sure if there was a better way.

[@Spaginni]

ive tried this multiple times. you really need to do this outside of a VM.

[@kozas0]

You wouldn't also select GPT for partitioning scheme if you are on BIOS. Nice video.

[@wendaozheliu5678]

great video

[@marcello4258]

Would have loved to see a best practice with encryption as this should always be used imo

[@miyolinux]

Bring the bass back! It'll fit snuggly in the corner behind you...or hang it on the opposite wall (in the corner) from Doctor Who and Big Al. That's my computer technical advice for this video...whether you like it or not! Bwahaha!

[@linuxdabbler]

@Miyo Linux. I like that idea. Gonna have to get me a mount now. Lol

[@lqlarry]

I got me one of them, got it at the Walmart.

[@peterjochum7652]

I did a fresh install of Debian Bookworm (rc1) to an existing partition. The installer by default installs the system into a @rootfs subvolume when selecting a BTRFS partition as root filesystem.

[@Little-bird-told-me]

Hiya ! I have been really liking your videos. I have been wanting ask you this question. I want to have a headless OS environment with Debian as its base. Would you suggest this to be a good choice for an _average_ linux user (someone who has installed Arch using the Installer, but doesn't want to play with the nity-gritties like chrooting to update Grub). How has been your Debian experience ? Do you suggest the Sid branch or would you say that beta branch (Bookworm) is better. I thought of going Debian Stable but that seems quite dated with kernel 1.13 or something. idk, you may even suggest Stable.

[@linuxdabbler]

My debian experience has been quite good. No issues with my hardware with non-free firmware installed. I have been running stable on my home media server, but usually recommend testing for desktop usage since it stays more up to date. I think the kernel is up to 5.18 in testing right now. When you say headless... Are you wanting to run Debian as a home server/nas or use it as a base for virtual machines to connect over the network? For the first use case. Debian stable For the second use case, I would actually recommend proxmox. It is based on Debian, it has a really nice interface in a web browser and can be installed easily on a ZFS array if that is important to you.

[@Little-bird-told-me]

@@linuxdabbler Many thanks. Oh, I meant headless from the point view of not have a DM /DE like Ubuntu or Fedora. I just like the the option of minimal install which directly boots to a Window manager like SpectrWM or DWM from a light weight login manager screen. I don't plan to use it as Server / nas or virtual machine (ssh)

[@TuxClaudiu]

Hy there, nice videos you have. I'm curios if you can make a video also about hardware acceleration on browsers (Chromium, Vivaldi, Brave, etc) to decode vp9 codec with the gpu(nvidia) because i didnt get it to fully work, vaapi and vdpau are somehow working but not working, browser reports full hardware acceleration, but actually is not.

[@hansbentum4018]

Thanks! For debian 12 bookworm alpha release I have to use space_cache=v2 (or skip it) because otherwise I got a btrfs error: cannot disable free space tree. As a result the system doesn't startup.

[@linuxdabbler]

@hansbentum4018. I had heard about debian requiring v2 of space_cache soon. So when I made an update to this video, where I installed debian with encrypted btrfs subvolumes, space_cache=v2 was included in the mount options... as well as a few other updated mount options.

[@wznvwyz553]

very cool - i like btrfs as root system. do you know the opensuse style of btrfs usage ? it makes possible to restore snapshots from the bootmenu

[@linuxdabbler]

@wzNvwYz5 wzNvwYz5. I'm not very familiar with opensuse and their btrfs configuration. I will definitely have to give it a try. Thanks for the tip!

[@nevoyu]

@@linuxdabbler snapper with grub-btrfs both are available in the debian repos.

[@s__c__o]

This installed fine but Timeshift wouldn’t work properly. Fix was by using the subvolume name during setup/fstab instead of the subvolid’s. eg. subvol=@ and subvol=@home (after creating a new @ subvol and mv @rootfs contents.) Editing fstab post-installation to use subvol name’s will also work/make Timeshift function.

[@JM-sn5eb]

Great video 1GB for efi was to much as you said. How much of space would be enough in real hardware usage with debian only and one kernel only?

[@linuxdabbler]

Honestly, 500M would be plenty

[@aronlinesl]

Hi! Can you do this with in an encrypted partition for btrfs?

[@lltechview]

Just tried to install via Debian Live and Calamares with btrfs and it ended up with a @ and @home subvolume automatically but could not boot up into the UI as it mounts @ as read only which makes absolutely no sense at all. So basically for mortals who want a click click install scenario debian btrfs is a no go.

[@linuxdabbler]

@techreviewpadcast. I have never installed Debian with the calamares installer, so I can't speak from experience, but if there is a way to check the mount options before the system gets installed, that may help troubleshoot the issue.

[@janulik9535]

Hi,..could you please help, navigate how to create snapshot of / and than succesfully boot from it usig this configuration, and just post coment here? I have been looking , there is kind of a lot info related to fedora , arch etc but i did not find workind solution for me

[@linuxdabbler]

@janulik9535. I have a script on my gitlab that automates the snapshotting part for me. It's called snapctl. If you'd like to have a look at it. gitlab.com/linuxdabbler/dotfiles It is in the rootscripts folder. As for booting the snapshot, I just change the subvolid in /etc/fstab. To get the subvolid you want, just run sudo btrfs subvolume list / And you should be ready to change the fstab file.

[@mrnetwork4472]

select BTRFS system disk with root subvolume @ , when i snap ON timeshift i read this msg , fix if u not mind , thanks

[@marianorodrigocc]

ok, but not working on btrfs , only rsync. no detecting the subvol.

[@KavicsZrt]

Lol, manjaro's installer knows it by default.

[@snackman94]

Does it also create subvolumes on its own?

[@KavicsZrt]

@@snackman94 Yes, full auto installer + auto settings btrfs backup/restore.