After using a Linux for a while, if you may realize that your /root or /home partition needs more space than anticipated. So, it might be useful to move these directories to their own partitions, if you haven’t done so originally. This setup also has the advantage that you can format and install a new copy of Linux without losing the user data. Here is how to move /root to its own partition.
/dev/sda7. Mount it in a directory, say /otherlin/root to /otherlin using the following commands
cp -urp /root/. /otherlin/
-r for recursive copy and -p is to preserve permission, date etc.
Here, -u means update, i.e. doesn’t overwrite already copied files.
Note that, cp -rp ~/* /otherlin
is not enough since it does not copy the dot files.
Alternative tools suggested: rsync, and curl (nice use!) to have a progress bar etc.bkid/etc/fstab and add the line
UUID=daef66f2-4c7a-4daa-9d7d-f217a3a3994f /root ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2
Here, the UUIS should be replaced by the appropriate one.
0 means it doesn’t have to be backed up. 2 means the system checks the partition after the first one (1 is / so / gets checked first; 0 means no checking).
mv /root /root.old
It failed the first time and had to uncomment the new line in fstab and reboot and try again to succeed.
mount -a