Linux on a laptop with tiny harddisk space

[Zak]

Hi guys,

This is my first post

I've installed Linux mint on my laptop with 16GB hard disk.

Obviously, 16GB is not that much and my plan now is to keep my my low profile 128 GB USB stick plugged to the laptop all the time and use this USB to store my personal files (libreoffice docs, manuals,,... ) and maybe i can use half that USB for backup (using BU tool)

my question is ... how to "mount" that usb and make it the default for destination to save our personal files.?

PS. I think Joe should maybe make a video on what options linux users have when their harddisk is small. 

[leon.p]

Hi guys,

This is my first post

Hi!

Obviously, 16GB is not that much and my plan now is to keep my my low profile 128 GB USB stick plugged to the laptop all the time and use this USB to store my personal files (libreoffice docs, manuals,,... ) and maybe i can use half that USB for backup (using BU tool)

Keep in mind that USB sticks don't survive as many read-writes as harddrives.
They are not designed for this kind of usage. Therefore I recommend you keep
all files that are accessed often on your laptops drive.

And having your backup on the same physical drive as your data is not a good
idea as well.

my question is ... how to "mount" that usb and make it the default for destination to save our personal files.?

You can put a new entry into the '/etc/fstab' file, telling your computer
to automatically mount it at boot.

I think I have written something similar to this a few times now, so if
you search for 'fstab' in this forum (the search box is on the upper right
side), you should find something useful.

If you want, I can also give you more detailled information; Just ask.

[bescott9944]

Hello,
Joe made this video that explains how to mount and or add HDD's to your system. Give it a looksee and see if it helps any.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeR8Rk5LwWU&t=765s

[spudnuts]

Well the first thing I would do if I didn't want to spend much on it is check ebay for a 120 or so gig drive, they run between 10 and 20 bucks.(I assume that this is a "play" computer to learn on.)
If that is not doable and you use the usb stick keep in mind they rarely show signs of failure before they do fail, so keeping that in mind I would use the 16gb drive with partitions like this :

1st primary partition to be mounted as / a size of 14gb
2nd primary partition to be mounted as swap using the rest of the drive
3rd primary partition to be mounted as /home using the usb stick

When you are ready to do the install start your computer with the usb stick already inserted (if installing from a usb have both inserted) after it boots enter gparted program and set up the drives the way I listed being careful to not change the usb you booted from.

Now when you are doing the install and get to the point it asks how you want to install tell it other that will get you to a screen that lets you choose how to mount your partitions mount 1 as /, mount 2 as swap, and mount 3 as /home and it should work properly, that being said if the usb stick fails it will take forever to load as there will be no home directory for any account, I'm not sure if it will even boot at all when that happens.
Also if you have more memory than the size of the swap partition then you will not be able to hibernate.

In order to just automount the usb stick without making any other changes to what you have set up already you can use the disks program and set the usb stick to automount on start and it will make the change to your fstab file for you.(I suggest if you do this that you should look at the file before and after to see what it does the file is at /etc/fstab.

[leon.p]

I'm not sure if it will even boot at all when that happens.

It will boot, but it will pause for 1 minute and 30 seconds while trying
to mount it. You can put the option 'nofail' into its fstab entry to avoid
this.

The computer should actually work normaly: If your home directory is empty,
I believe it will either just copy the contents of '/etc/skel' to it or it
will keep it empty. Anyway, it will just be as if you have never used that
account before, as all files and all changes are not there.

[spudnuts]

Thanks for clearing that up Leon I have never tried to start one with no home.