I'm considering switching from openSUSE to Debian. I have several encrypted partitions in a separate storage volume that I would like to mount in /home. Can the Debian installer do that without reformatting them? (openSUSE's YaST installer once could do that but no longer does, one of several reasons for moving away from openSUSE.)
Leslie
On Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 10:13 PM J Leslie Turriff via tde-users users@trinitydesktop.org wrote:
I'm considering switching from openSUSE to Debian. I have several encryptedpartitions in a separate storage volume that I would like to mount in /home. Can the Debian installer do that without reformatting them? (openSUSE's YaST installer once could do that but no longer does, one of several reasons for moving away from openSUSE.)
I don't know any place in the Debian install to mount existing "other" partitions, but then I haven't done the "expert" install in a very long time.
Leaving them out of the install process and then creating them in /etc/fstab afterward would seem safest.
Curt-
On 2025-09-25 21:35:13 Curt Howland via tde-users wrote:
On Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 10:13 PM J Leslie Turriff via tde-users
users@trinitydesktop.org wrote:
I'm considering switching from openSUSE to Debian. I haveseveral encrypted partitions in a separate storage volume that I would like to mount in /home. Can the Debian installer do that without reformatting them? (openSUSE's YaST installer once could do that but no longer does, one of several reasons for moving away from openSUSE.)
I don't know any place in the Debian install to mount existing "other" partitions, but then I haven't done the "expert" install in a very long time.
Leaving them out of the install process and then creating them in /etc/fstab afterward would seem safest.
I suppose so, but I'm not sure how to do it; YaST always did it for me, setting up appropriate entries in /etc/crypttab and /etc/fstab.
Leslie
Curt-
J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:
I suppose so, but I'm not sure how to do it; YaST always did it for me, setting up appropriate entries in /etc/crypttab and /etc/fstab.
Well, when you use the standard install procedure it will create all the entries for you. When you do not use the standard procedure, you have to use the expert mode (with caution) and there you have the ability to use existing partitions (incl. encrypted one)
If I were you, I would play through this scenario on a USB stick or another disk. Usually it is worth the time doing it.
I use same Slavek the netinstaller or more often I use a USB stick to boot into the machine, partition with gparted, mount what I need and debootstrap ... (it needs a bit of tuning afterwords)
BR
On 2025-09-26 07:52:34 deloptes via tde-users wrote:
J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:
I suppose so, but I'm not sure how to do it; YaST always did it for me, setting up appropriate entries in /etc/crypttab and /etc/fstab.
Well, when you use the standard install procedure it will create all the entries for you. When you do not use the standard procedure, you have to use the expert mode (with caution) and there you have the ability to use existing partitions (incl. encrypted one)
If I were you, I would play through this scenario on a USB stick or another disk. Usually it is worth the time doing it.
I use same Slavek the netinstaller or more often I use a USB stick to boot into the machine, partition with gparted, mount what I need and debootstrap ... (it needs a bit of tuning afterwords)
BR
Excellent! Thank you (and Slávek) for pointing that out.
Leslie
J Leslie Turriff composed on 2025-09-25 21:10 (UTC-0500):
I'm considering switching from openSUSE to Debian. I have several encrypted partitions in a separate storage volume that I would like to mount in /home. Can the Debian installer do that without reformatting them? (openSUSE's YaST installer once could do that but no longer does, one of several reasons for moving away from openSUSE.)
No Debian installer has ever prevented me from creating non-standard mount points and choosing existing filesystems to mount there, much less forcing format of existing filesystems with data on them. Debian is neither Mint nor Ubuntu, not filled with kitchen sink junk. It's fully capable of doing what /needs/ doing.
Mine all have a bunch of such locations in fstab.
11 PCs so far have Forky upgrades from Trixie, which were made from Bookworm, which were made from Bullseye, or even farther back originally.
Debian's package management system is no less competent than openSUSE's, though I do far and away prefer zypper and rpm. I haven't done a fresh installation of Debian since probably around v11, so probably about 4 years ago when I last bought a brand new motherboard with NVME. Upgrades from version to version have been a reliable breeze over the years on the 40+ computers I have with Debian on them.
Like Curt wrote, creating those mount points and setting up their use is easily and safely enough done post-installation, no GUI needed.
What I do do when installing Debian, is minimalist, by appending the following parameters (among others) to the installer's boot command line:
tasks=standard base-installer/install-recommends=false \ GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true
This avoids the bloat of Gnome, Plasma, XFCE, Cinnamon or any other desktops, giving free reign to TDE to do whatever it pleases. :) My Debians all have TDE, and no other "DE" but IceWM, as super lightweight tester+fallback.
Note that all my computers, except one laptop given me already setup, are configured with static network setup on ethernet, nothing wireless. For the past 3 or more years all, including openSUSE, Debian, Fedora, Mageia and more, have been using systemd-networkd to the exclusion of traditional methods and networking "managers". Each PC uses a copy of the very same config file in /etc/systemd/network/ in each installation, and same for /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hosts.
On 2025-09-25 22:34:59 Felix Miata via tde-users wrote:
J Leslie Turriff composed on 2025-09-25 21:10 (UTC-0500):
I'm considering switching from openSUSE to Debian. I have several encrypted partitions in a separate storage volume that I would like to mount in /home. Can the Debian installer do that without reformatting them? (openSUSE's YaST installer once could do that but no longer does, one of several reasons for moving away from openSUSE.)
No Debian installer has ever prevented me from creating non-standard mount points and choosing existing filesystems to mount there, much less forcing format of existing filesystems with data on them. Debian is neither Mint nor Ubuntu, not filled with kitchen sink junk. It's fully capable of doing what /needs/ doing.
Well, the YaST Partitioner, until the last few releases, allowed me to define mount points for pre-existing encrypted partitions, merely asking for the key when "Encrypt" was checked, but now it doesn't, which IMO is a strange "improvement;" thus my question.
Mine all have a bunch of such locations in fstab.
11 PCs so far have Forky upgrades from Trixie, which were made from Bookworm, which were made from Bullseye, or even farther back originally.
Debian's package management system is no less competent than openSUSE's, though I do far and away prefer zypper and rpm.
I haven't used anything except YaST since I started with OpenSuSE 6.3, another reason for my question. YaST has generally been very friendly, though lacking support for NetworkManager and now this weirdness with partitioning.
I haven't done a fresh installation of Debian since probably around v11, so probably about 4 years ago when I last bought a brand new motherboard with NVME. Upgrades from version to version have been a reliable breeze over the years on the 40+ computers I have with Debian on them.
Like Curt wrote, creating those mount points and setting up their use is easily and safely enough done post-installation, no GUI needed.
Having to manually modify /etc/crypttab and /etc/fstab is a niusance at best, what with having to fiddle with UUIDs and such.
What I do do when installing Debian, is minimalist, by appending the following parameters (among others) to the installer's boot command line:
tasks=standard base-installer/install-recommends=false \ GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true
This avoids the bloat of Gnome, Plasma, XFCE, Cinnamon or any other desktops, giving free reign to TDE to do whatever it pleases. :) My Debians all have TDE, and no other "DE" but IceWM, as super lightweight tester+fallback.
Does not this GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true prevent the installer from adding my existing openSUSE system (soon to be for fallback) from being added to the boot menu?
Note that all my computers, except one laptop given me already setup, are configured with static network setup on ethernet, nothing wireless. For the past 3 or more years all, including openSUSE, Debian, Fedora, Mageia and more, have been using systemd-networkd to the exclusion of traditional methods and networking "managers". Each PC uses a copy of the very same config file in /etc/systemd/network/ in each installation, and same for /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hosts.
This machine that I use for general-purpose stuff has no WiFi capability, but my laptop and new desktop do, so rather than festoon the house with ethernet cables (they're in different rooms) I'm using WiFi for them, which AFAIK means NetworkManager (correct me if I'm wrong; networking is my achilles heel :-) ).
Leslie
J Leslie Turriff composed on 2025-09-26 00:28 (UTC-0500):
Felix Miata via tde-users wrote:
Debian's package management system is no less competent than openSUSE's, though I do far and away prefer zypper and rpm.
I haven't used anything except YaST since I started with OpenSuSE 6.3, another reason for my question. YaST has generally been very friendly, though lacking support for NetworkManager and now this weirdness with partitioning.
Leap 16 has Myrlyn available for GUI software management. So far, 16 still hasn't eliminated YaST2. I just opened Myrlyn for the first time, and the only notable difference I can see between it and yast2 sw_single is the titlebar says Myrlyn instead of YaST2. You could add a repo for http://cdn.opensuse.org/repositories/system:/packagemanager/15.6/x86_64/ and install it on 15.6 to give it a workout.
What I do do when installing Debian, is minimalist, by appending the following parameters (among others) to the installer's boot command line:
tasks=standard base-installer/install-recommends=false \ GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true
This avoids the bloat of Gnome, Plasma, XFCE, Cinnamon or any other desktops, giving free reign to TDE to do whatever it pleases. :) My Debians all have TDE, and no other "DE" but IceWM, as super lightweight tester+fallback.
Does not this GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true prevent the installer from adding my existing openSUSE system (soon to be for fallback) from being added to the boot menu?
I was just reporting some things I do or not. I do all my booting from Tumbleweed's Grub, so there's no need to run os-prober on any other installation here to build yet another a big bloated grub.cfg that will unlikely ever be opened. With TW running the boot show, all booting is done via a /etc/grub.d/ call to /boot/grub2/custom.cfg, showing menu entries I put there with one of my favorite text editors. For more detail about this, read my posts on: https://forums.opensuse.org/t/how-to-have-a-custom-uefi-grub-menu-for-a-multiboot-system/133541
On Friday 26 of September 2025 07:28:17 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:
No Debian installer has ever prevented me from creating non-standard mount points and choosing existing filesystems to mount there, much less forcing format of existing filesystems with data on them. Debian is neither Mint nor Ubuntu, not filled with kitchen sink junk. It's fully capable of doing what /needs/ doing.
Well, the YaST Partitioner, until the last few releases, allowed me to define mount points for pre-existing encrypted partitions, merely asking for the key when "Encrypt" was checked, but now it doesn't, which IMO is a strange "improvement;" thus my question.
I normally use the Debian installer in variant netinst and in expert mode. In such a case, it is possible to select to mount any partitions to any location and for existing partitions it is no problem to leave existing data - define mount point without the need for formatting.
Cheers Slávek --
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Curt Howland -
deloptes -
Felix Miata -
J Leslie Turriff -
Slávek Banko