The original post: /r/ubuntu by /u/WolfPup101102 on 2025-03-06 04:21:51.

I just went from Windows 11 to Ubuntu today. Liking it so far but I need more info on how mv and Xorg/Wayland GUI copies work. The manpages doesn’t seem to explain as to what the limitations are in terms of shortcuts/symblinks, permissions, and other reserved files. My current setup is only a single terabyte hard drive almost full to the brim so I added a 480GB SSD mainly for Ubuntu. What I want to do is move all the files and folders related to Ubuntu including the UEFI partition to the SSD while leaving behind the /home folder behind because that’s where my files are. If I did an mv command on the folders/files on the root directory, would that break the installation due to permission changes and time/dates on the files/folders? Or is there a better way?

I don’t have an external storage big enough for more than 800GB of files to perform a clean install.