moving /home partition (howtogeek instructions)

[222fbj]

I want to move /home from sda4 to sda1.
I am following instructions from HowtoGeek How to Create a Separate Home Partition After Installing Ubun. I have created the partition (sda1) and copied my /home to it. I have the blockid and the next step is '4. Modify fstab' I will modify fstab to use the new partition blockid for /home.

I stopped and wrote this post because I don't understand what happens next in step 5 with

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cd / && sudo mv /home /home_old && sudo mkdir /home

The instructions I am following are for moving /home to a partition - and I began thinking that might be different than what I am trying to do - move the /home partition.

Should I continue with Steps 4 and 5 (cd / && sudo mv /home /home_old && sudo mkdir /home) then reboot? thank you

gparted2x.jpg

[slipstick]

Yes, you need to do that. You have copied your /home files to sda1, so now you need to make a mountpoint named home in the / directory. This command renames the old /home directory to /home_old so that you can make a new directory /home as the mountpoint for your sda1 partition. The old /home directory could have been deleted instead of just renamed here, but it is safer to keep the files in it until you are sure everything is working right, then delete the /home_old and its files in the "Clean Up" step. The syntax of the command is to first change the working directory to /, then if that is successful, rename the /home directory, then if that is successful make the new /home directory.

EDIT: Ignore the above, I misunderstood what you are doing. I just noticed that you already have a separate partition for home, so what you are doing is different from the instructions you are following. You really just want to change /home from one partition to another, so after moving the files to sda1, you could just modify fstab to mount sda1 to /home instead of sda4, in which case you don't need to do that last step, just modify fstab and reboot.

[catweazel]

Should I continue with Steps 4 and 5 (cd / && sudo mv /home /home_old && sudo mkdir /home) then reboot? thank you

If you don't complete step 4 then your home partition won't mount. As for step 5, it seems rather obvious about what's next. If you've been following the tutorial without variation then you continue to follow it.

Step 5: Move Home Directory & Restart
From a terminal, run the following command to leave your home directory, move your current home directory to a placeholder location, and create a new, empty home directory which your new partition will be mounted at:

You need to perform step 5 so that the existing home directory is renamed to home_old. This is a safety precaution. You need a new /home directory to use as a mount point for your /home partition. This is vital.