Btrfs boot

Although the PCLinuxOS installer will format and install to BTRFS partitions it will NOT use subvolumes. This procedure will take a standard installation on BTRFS partitions and convert them to use subvolumes at boot time. This is intended for advanced users that understand BTRFS subvolumes and Linux boot and File System administration.

In this procedure:

/dev/sda1 is the root partition

/dev/sda5 is the home partition

When the normal PCLinuxOS installation is finished and tested reboot the Live Media and open a terminal.

1) Mount the partitions and create the subvolumes

  mkdir /mnt
  mkdir /mnt/sda1 && mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
  mkdir /mnt/sda5 && mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/sda5
  btrfs subvolume create /mnt/sda1/@boot
  btrfs subvolume create /mnt/sda1/@root
  btrfs subvolume create /mnt/sda5/@home

2) Mount the subvolumes

  mkdir /mnt/root && mount -o subvol=@root /dev/sda1 /mnt/root
  mkdir /mnt/boot && mount -o subvol=@boot /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
  mkdir /mnt/home && mount -o subvol=@home /dev/sda5 /mnt/home

3) Move the data to the subvolumes

  shopt -s extglob
  cd /mnt/sda1
  mv ./boot/* /mnt/boot
  mv !(@*) /mnt/root
  cd /mnt/sda5
  mv !(@*) /mnt/home
  cd

4) Unmount everything then remount correctly using subvolumes and enter a chroot

  for i in /home /boot /root /sda5 /sda1; do umount /mnt$i; done
  mkdir /mnt/chroot
  mount -o subvol=@root /dev/sda1 /mnt/chroot
  mount -o subvol=@boot /dev/sda1 /mnt/chroot/boot
  for i in /sys /proc /dev; do mount -B $i /mnt/chroot$i; done
  chroot /mnt/chroot

5) Edit /etc/fstab to correctly mount the subvolumes. The entries should look something like:

  # Entry for /dev/sda1 :
  /dev/sda1 / btrfs relatime,subvol=@root 1 1
  # Entry for /dev/sda5 :
  /dev/sda5 /home btrfs relatime,subvol=@home 1 2
  none /proc proc defaults 0 0
  none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0

6) Reinstall GRUB2 and remake the configuration

  grub2-install /dev/sda
  update-grub2

7) Remake the initrd which should include the btrfs module

  mkinitrd -f -v /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

Once this is done you exit the chroot, unmount everything and reboot into the new system. Good luck!