Linux Mint Forums

Hi,

I have just received my new Gazelle laptop from System76.
Its most obvious feature is that it has a primary 250Gb SSD drive and a secondary 1Tb standard drive.
Both are internal.

Not being a fan of Unity, the first thing I did was zap the pre-installed Ubuntu with a fresh copy of Mint 18.2 Cinnamon.

The install went through successfully and the laptop is working fast and flawlessly.

However, I am noticing that everything is installed solely in the primary drive.
In Nemo, the secondary drive is showing up in the Devices section as would an external drive or USB key.

The intent of the secondary internal drive is to use it for '/home' (ie the location of all user files and additional installed programs).
Visibly, this is not handled through the install process.
I need assistance in moving '/home' to this secondary drive or advanced Mint install instructions to achieve this state.

I haven't found an article in the forum pertaining to this matter.
If you know of one, please provide the link.
Any help is welcomed.

Cheers,
Solostian

I also have a new laptop from System 76 (same drive config as you).....it is a Kudu as opposed to a Gazelle.

I am also confused about zapping the Ubunto OS for Linux Mint (Mate) but am not comfortable about doing it without some specific instructions.

Can anyone help us? Please?

Thanks

I got my Kudu last year. Love it.

I finally was able to install LM properly on my wife's Gazelle.

Here's my howto :

First, choose "Other" in the installation options.
You will get to a screen showing your drives and partitions.
Start by deleting all the partitions except the one labeled 'EFI'. This is partition is for UEFI and is setup at the start of the SSD.
Then, at the end of the SSD, define a Logical partition for SWAPAREA usage. It should be sized to 1.5 times your RAM.
Afterwards, on the remaining space of the SSD, define a Primary partition for the root ('/').
Finally, on your secondary drive, define a Primary partition using all the available space for your home ('/home').

After the installation is completed, you will need to tune your setup furthermore in order to increase the lifespan of your SSD (reduced swappiness and such).
There are a lot of useful SSD articles in th LM forums.

From what I understand, this is the basic setup for multiple-drive systems.
Others might propose "better" setups but this one works fine.
Best of all, my wife is very happy with it!

Have fun,
Solostian

I almost forgot...

Do a backup of the data you want to carry over on an external drive before you start LM installation.

Duh!

This is indeed the way to make a clean install with a separate /home on the secondary hard drive.
If you already have installed your system, set it up and dont want to go through a reinstall (which is however the simplest solution), you can look at this link to move your home partition : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Parti ... ome/Moving
To optimize your SSD, here is a solid reference : https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd

Solostian,

Many thanks for taking the time to share. It has worked great for me.

All the best to you.

Pablo (in Mazatlan, Mexico)