• MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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    10 months ago

    Great take. But you know the real sneaky one that trips you up? File system.

    I wouldn’t call myself a beginner, but every time I install a Linux system seriously I see those filesystem choices and have to dig through volumes of turbo-nerd debates on super fine intricacies between them, usually debating their merits in super high-risk critical contexts.

    I still don’t come away with knowing which one will be best for me long-term in a practical sense.

    As well as tons of “It ruined my whole system” or “Wrote my SSD to death” FUD that is usually outdated but nevertheless persists.

    Honestly nowadays I just happily throw BTRFS on there because it’s included on the install and allows snapshots and rollbacks. EZPZ.

    For everything else, EXT4, and for OS-shared storage, NTFS.

    But it took AGES to arrive to this conclusion. Beginners will have their heads spun at this choice, guaranteed. It’s frustrating.

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      10 months ago

      I did NTFS because both windows and Linux can read it. Do I know literally any other fact about formatting systems? Nope. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to, I’m normie-adjacent. I just want my system to work so I can use the internet, play games, and do word processing.

      • phanto@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        I once tried to install my Steam Library in Linux to an NTFS partition so I wouldn’t have to install things twice on a dual boot system. Protip: don’t do that.

        • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
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          10 months ago

          chkdsk -f (or r or whatever the third option is), reboot twice, but do it multiple times because steam on linux asks you to reinstall the games in the exact same spot and you accidentally do it because you’re not paying close attention due to the mild panic windows threw at you?

    • mdurell@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Ext4 is the safe bet for a beginner. The real question is with or without LVM. Generally I would say with but that abstraction layer between the filesystem and disk can really be confusing if you’ve never dealt with it before. A total beginner should probably go ext4 without LVM and then play around in a VM with the various options to become informed enough to do something less vanilla.

      • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
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        10 months ago

        and then play around in a VM with the various options to become informed enough to do something less vanilla.

        This part is skippable, right? Any reason a user should ever care about this?

        (note: never heard of LVM before this thread)

        • stratosfear@lemmy.sdf.org
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          10 months ago

          It makes adding space easier down the road, either by linking disks or if you clone your root drive to a larger drive, which tends to not be something most “end users” (I try not to use that description but you said it heh) would do. Yes, using LVM is optional.

      • Pantherina@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        Can you explain LVM in practice to me? I used ext4 and now Fedora Kinoite with BTRFS, the filsystem never makes any problems and some fancy features just work.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      10 months ago

      Lending my voice to this as well for most, my thought is EXT4, without LVM, deferring to the preferred FS for the distro. It is a mature, stable, and reliable choice and logical volumes complicate things too much for beginners.

      If dual-booting, yeah, definitely an NTFS partition for shared storage (just be aware that Windows can be weird with file permissions and ownership).

    • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      If I read lsblk correctly, I am using ext4 for my whole drive. I have used linux for some years now, but I never bothered to learn more than “next next next done” when installing my OS.

      Does BTRFS popOS allow BTRFS? Should I bother for a daily driver?

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Unraid turned me on to BTRFS, but in the end, you have to want to use the features to make it matter.

      • Pantherina@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        In practice BTRFS is a bit faster and on a Distro like Fedora or Opensuse they already integrate it to do system backups while running (copy on write).

        In practice it just works and you dont use all the fancy possibilities, because a majority of the Linux world still sticks with ext4 for whatever reason, so Filemanagers and backup tools wouldnt reach everyone.

        Its a perfect example of Linux slowing down itself by desperately refusing to change

        • Xorg
        • old Desktops
        • old software, system packages, damn appimages
        • no automatic updates
        • ext4 instead of something modern

        Ext4 is from 2008. BTRFS is even older from 2007, but was only declared stable in 2013. More innovation, more testing time, more “dont use it yet, it is unstable”. Ext4 probably never was as they didnt try that much.

    • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Makes sense to go simplest as possible on a home pc and even home sever. More important with raid and production capacity planning or enterprise stuff.