Hi,
due to the nature of the Flatpak Sandbox, this is more difficult than one might think
Prepare the Drive for Usage
The first step is to partition/format/mount the 2nd Drive. I assume for this, that your 2nd Drive is called /dev/sdb (verify!).
Make yourself root
Run sudo bash
then enter your password.
Partitioning
Run sgdisk --zap-all /dev/sdb
to remove everything on the drive, then run gdisk /dev/sdb
and create a new partition with Code 8300. Write the changes to the disk and exit.
Formatting
Run mkfs.ext4 -L scratch /dev/sdb1
to create a new Filesystem on the newly created partition and give it a name.
Automatically mount
Create a mountpoint like /var/scratch
with mkdir /var/scratch
. Now edit /etc/fstab
and insert the following line:
LABEL=scratch /var/scratch ext4 defaults 0 0
This will make the OS mount the disk automatically at boot. Now mount the filesystem manually with mount -a
Create a personal directory on it
I strongly advise you to create a personal directory on the filesystem with the proper permisssions:
mkdir /var/scratch/myname
chown myname:users /var/scratch/myname
chmod -R 700 /var/scratch/myname
(replace myname
with your actual username)
Link to it from your Home Directory
To make access to the filesystem more convenient, run:
ln -s /var/scratch/myname ~/scratch
This will create a symbolic link in your homedirectory to the filesystem on the 2nd drive
Allow Flatpak applications access to this location
Flatpak per default does not allow you to access this location. You have to manually override the permission to explicitly allow it:
flatpak override --user --filesystem=/var/scratch org.gnome.Boxes
This will allow Gnome Boxes access to the 2nd Drive
Move your Boxes
Gnome Boxes stores it’s files per default under:
~/.var/app/org.gnome.Boxes/data/gnome-boxes/images
You need to move this directory to your 2nd-Drive, e.g. to
/var/scratch/myname/images
Now the more complex part - we need to modify the configuration for two parts:
- The default storage location for creating new Boxes
- The storage location for already existing Boxes
Run:
flatpak run --command=sh org.gnome.Boxes
This will put you inside the Flatpak Sandbox for Gnome Boxes, but in a Shell. We have to use the virsh
Tool to modify the necessary files, but unfortunately they rely on the Vi Editor, which is not available in the Sandbox, so we have to make a Quickhack. Run:
cp /bin/nano vi
export PATH=$PATH:.
This will copy the Nano-Editor which is available in the Sandbox to Vi and set the path to it. virsh
is now happy and will let us edit the configuration files.
Run:
virsh pool-edit gnome-boxes
Modify the following line to set the default location for new images:
<path>/var/scratch/egon/Boxes</path>
Now save and exit (ctrl-X). Next, run the following command to list the names of all your currently created boxes:
virsh list --all
will give you something like:
- eos3.7-en shut off
- win10 shut off
To edit the configuration for the Box, run: (replace the name)
virsh edit eos3.7-en
and edit the Line:
<source file='/var/scratch/egon/Boxes/eos3.7-en'/>
To point to the new location. Save and exit with Ctrl-X.
When everything has been done, you can run your Boxes again.