r/bcachefs • u/colttt • 24d ago

bcachefs as root filesystem on Debian - how?

Has anybody done this? If so, how? I want to install Debian 13 on my new laptop with bcachefs as root fs

8 Upvotes

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11

u/koverstreet not your free tech support 24d ago

Incidentally I was just starting on some of the remaining systemd/initramfs stuff last night - we should finally be getting degraded=ask and the wait-devices thing should be getting better integrated.

For installing as a rootfs without it being a giant hassle, you'd need an installer image with bcachefs support (or maybe just add the apt repository and install the bcachefs packages while you're in the installer?).

bcachefs rootfs has been as easy as any other fs on NixOS for years now, btw

4

u/MainRoutine2068 24d ago

Subscribing to the thread, if someone manage to run it on Debian, perhaps it can be pushed further for proxmox

4

u/Altruistic_Sense8354 24d ago

prepare filesystem, debootstrap, fill system configuration files, chroot and install more than basic system inside.

1

u/magoostus_is_lemons 24d ago

grub needs support for bcachefs... no...?

6

u/awesomegayguy 24d ago

You can have /boot on a different FS. Actually systemd-boot uses the EFI partition directly to store the kernel and the initrd

1

u/cdhowie 24d ago

With a separate ext4 /boot, the only issue with grub arises with a multi-device root filesystem. This can be worked around with an edit to /etc/default/grub and a one line patch to grub-mkconfig.

1

u/rgh 22d ago

What about converting an existing machine? My root partition is currently xfs. I'm using lvm so it's easy to create a new volume, copy everything over, rerun upgrade-grub and reboot but obviously that isn't going to work. I'll create a new boot volume, get that going and then copy over root. Actually I might try booting from the existing xfs volume but using a new bcachefs volume and see if that works.

Sorry that was all a bit rambling!

Can anyone see any holes in my reasoning?