On Sun, Nov 30, 2025 at 05:55:57AM -0700, Peter via Dng wrote:

> From:    Steve Litt <slitt@???>
> Date:    Sat, 29 Nov 2025 21:58:28 -0500
> > ... Ext4 or btrfs etc is good enough for me.
> > ...
> > Let's say your boot drive is a single partition on an NVMe. You 
> > install your OS on that, as THE single partition.

>
> Good tutorial. Thanks! Stored in the SteveLitt file here.
>
> (1) Often the orginal system is on /dev/sda. For blunder avoidance,
> will translate "/dev/sda" to "/dev/sd<somethingElse>" before messing
> with commands.
>
> (2)
> > The real beauty is when you add a few other directories, which
> > used to be mountpoints. Instead of you having to guess how much
> > they'll hold, you can just symlink them to corresponding directories
> > under /bindmounts, and you'll have former mountpoints that are now
> > completely expandable and shrinkable.
>
> Good.
>
> Suppose you add another device, /dev/sdb. You can't have a directory
> spanning /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. Correct?
>
> All I know about overlayfs is from Wikipedia.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OverlayFS
> Reaches a result similar to yours? Allows a directory to span
> multiple devices? Another gadget to try when there's time to spare.
> =8~/

There is "mhddfs" to use for that. It's a fuse filesystem that
combines multiple mount points into a single one. Though I've only use
that for "archive" purposes. It has the limitation that files will be
placed to each residing fully on a single (sub) mount.

Using mhddfs is similar to bind-mounting sub mount as distinct parts
of the home area, but it applies from its root and with mhddfs the
distribution of files across the sub mounts is "hidden" for the user.

Then of course you may also use the device mapper (dm) or the
abstraction layer "lvm" over that. This will also "hide" the
placements of files across the sub mounts, and this method in fact
allows for files being scattered across them since the mounts are
combined as partitions rather. The file placements is then all part of
how the filesystem works over the combination partition and "hidden"
for the user.

Ralph.

>
> > ... thoroughly test it out on a VM guest before doing it for real.
>
> Certainly. Probably on a test machine where I can wreck havok.
>

> Thx!                                  ... P.

>

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