this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Linux

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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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One single partition for Linux versus using a partition table? (self.linux)
submitted 1 year ago by mambabasa to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Heya folks, some people online told me I was doing partitions wrong, but I’ve been doing it this way for years. Since I’ve been doing it for years, I could be doing it in an outdated way, so I thought I should ask.

I have separate partitions for EFI, /, swap, and /home. Am I doing it wrong? Here’s how my partition table looks like:

  • FAT32: EFI
  • BTRFS: /
  • Swap: Swap
  • Ext4: /home

I set it up this way so that if I need to reinstall Linux, I can just overwrite / while preserving /home and just keep working after a new install with very few hiccups. Someone told me there’s no reason to use multiple partitions, but several times I have needed to reinstall the OS (Linux Mint) while preserving /home so this advice makes zero sense for me. But maybe it was just explained to me wrong and I really am doing it in an outdated way. I’d like to read what you say about this though.

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[–] Infernal_pizza@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Why do you have a btrfs volume and an ext4 volume? I went btrfs and used sub volumes to split up my root and home but I’m not sure if that’s the best way to do it or not

[–] mambabasa 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I use btrfs for my / because I can use Linux Mint’s Timeshift tool to make snapshots, but I don’t want snapshots of /home to be included. Am I doing this wrong?

[–] S410@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can put your /home on a different BTRFS subvolume and exclude it from being snapshotted.

[–] mambabasa 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How about when I reinstall the OS? Will it only affect the / and not touch the /home?

[–] S410@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

As long as you don't re-format the partition. Not all installers are created equal, so it might be more complicated to re-install the OS without wiping the partition entirely. Or it might be just fine. I don't really install linux often enough to know that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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