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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What is your partitioning strategy to achieve a stable, backup-able and recoverable system? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hello, I've been a long time Linux user but I had a 5 years break and I am coming back to it now.

I've been trying several Linux distributions in the past week, installing the packages and configuring them as I need with several different orders of success.

My last case was an Ubuntu installation that I was very happy with and pretty close to call it setup and done, until I installed virtualbox and restarted the system only to find it bricked.

Obviously I could try to drop into one of the terminals on ctrl + alt + Fx and fix it, but I wonder if I could be smarter about it and be more prepared for this kind of situation.

One of the starting points I think would be having a separate home partition from the rest of the system. I used to have it in the past and it was great.

But then what's next? What are the best FS I could pick for each type of partition? A performant one to keep the code and package manager cache, a journaling/snapshop based one for system, another type for game data, etc etc.

What if I would like to have a snapshot of working version of my system backed up somewhere ready to restore as simple as simple as possible?

How do you configure your systems in order to quickly recover from an unexpected bricking without growing some more white hairs, and squeezing as much performance vs feature for each of your use case?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For years I used ext4 and backuped on an external HD/SSD using rsync.

For a couple of months now I redid a test setup with btrfs (and luks), I have a root, home, var, swap subvolumes. I'm using Timeshift for backup, I think I need to format a new external SSD as btrfs too to backup the snapshot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm getting a new, actually modern computer in 6 months or so and have been thinking BTRFS similar to your use. I'm mainly used to server hardware and my last system was SSD for root and HDD for everything else (a bit out of date for PCs).

I'm thinking of a similar setup, with 2x NVME drives as a BTRFS in RAID1 w/ subvolumes and external backups. How's your setup working for you?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dual boot windows/Linux on the nvme, another SSD is NTFS because there's doc, pictures, mp3, etc that I can access from both OS. All NTFS are using bitlocker.

Btrfs works pretty well, it is mature, I'll test an external SSD using luks/btrfs to backup my system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Very nice. The dual-boot is not something that I'll have to worry about. Fortunately, nothing that I worry about has dependency on Windows. Any gaming is on a steam deck or console, so, I'll be using it purely for nerdy fun.