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Install Pop!_OS with btrfs and subvolumes (shortened)

This guide targets users interested to get started quickly with Pop!_OS over Btrfs using an "Ubuntu layout", which means that the user will be able to leverage automatic snapshots from Timeshift for excellent stability despite frequent updates.

Warnings:

  • the guide assumes that the user is not using full-disk encryption
  • it features (optional) zstd compression and other SSD optimizations, fitting best laptop users.

Required partition layout

  • the bootloader partition:
  • size: 512MBs
  • format: fat32
  • mount point: /boot/efi
  • suggested label: POP_boot
  • the root partition:
    • size: +25 Gbs
    • format: btrfs
    • mount point: /
    • suggested label: POP_OS

Get started

  1. Install Pop!OS using the official installer from a Live environment as indicated by the Required partition layout above.
  2. Do not close the Pop!_OS installer. Instead fire up GNOME Terminal and acquire super-user rights:
sudo -i
  Password: ******

Display your current partitions:

lsblk -f

Write down the UUIDs of both the booloader and root partitions.

Create the Btrfs subvolumes

Replace the contents between < > as fits (see previous section). Each new line is a separate command to run.

mount <path to root partition> /mnt

cd /mnt

sudo btrfs subvolume create @

ls | grep -v "@\|home" | xargs mv -t @

sudo btrfs subvolume create @home

mv ./home ./@home

Make sure ls gives you @ @home.

Unmount:

cd /

umount /mnt

Edit the newly installed system

Each new line is a separate command to run. Remove the ssd option if you are not using an SSD.

mount -o sudo mount -o defaults,subvol=@,ssd,discard,noatime,space_cache,compress=zstd,commit=120 <path to root partition> /mnt

for i in /dev/dev/pts/proc/sys/run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

sudo cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/

In case you are reinstalling over a previous Btrfs partition, the first command is likely to fail. To get it to work you'll need to add the clear_cache parameter, as in:

mount -o sudo mount -o <...other options>,clear_cache <path to root partition> /mnt

At this point the terminal might warn about /etc/resolv.conf being a duplicate of the target; you can safely ignore the warning.

chroot /mnt

nano /etc/fstab

Make sure you have one line starting with UUID for / and one for /home. The only difference between these two lines is that one uses the subvol=@ parameter while the other uses subvol=@home. (Remove the ssd option if you are not using an SSD). Example:

UUID=18226258-bb30-4552-98c0-775ae3d74433  /  btrfs  defaults,subvol=@,ssd,noatime,space_cache,commit=120,compress=zstd  0  0

UUID=18226258-bb30-4552-98c0-775ae3d74433  /home  btrfs  defaults,subvol=@home,ssd,noatime,space_cache,commit=120,compress=zstd  0  0

Save the file with Ctrl + O and close with Ctrl + X. Make sure you get the following result from mount -av:

mount -av
  /boot/efi : successfully mounted
  ...
  / : ignored
  /home : successfully mounted

Add the kernel parameters persistently:

kernelstub -a "rootflags=subvol=@" -l -s

update-initramfs -c -k all

You can now exit the terminal with exit (you will need to enter it twice) and reboot to the newly installed system.

Optional step: Defrag & rebalance data blocks

sudo btrfs filesystem defrag -v -r -f /

sudo btrfs filesystem defrag -v -r -f /home

sudo btrfs balance start -m /