this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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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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I installed Debian today. I'm terrified to do anything. Is there a single button backup/restore I can depend on when I ultimately fuck this up?
timeshift is pretty good, but bootable btrfs snapshots are even better
These have both saved my ass on numerous occasions. Btrfs especially is pretty amazing.
You want a disk imager like clonezilla or something. If you’re not ready for that just show hidden files and copy your /home/your_username directory to a usb or something. That’s where all your files live.
I ran Linux in a vm and destroyed it about... 5 times. It allowed me to really get in and try everything. Once I rana command that removed everything, and I remember watching icons disappear as the destruction unfolded in front of me. It was kind of fun.
I have everything backed up and synced so it's all fine. Just lots of reinstalling Thunderbird, Firefox, re logging into firefox sync, etc.
Once I stopped destroying everything I did a proper install and haven't looked back.
This will be my 7th year on Linux now. And I have to say, it feels good to be free.
Another perspective: Your question implies you want to try out things with Debian. If this assumption is correct, I would highly recommend you just create a virtual machine with qemu/libvirt and learn within this environments/try out things there before doing stuff 'on the metal'.
Of course backups are always a good idea and once you got your feed wet you might want to learn about 'Infrastructure as code'. Have fun!
That's a fantastic suggestion and I've already been doing exactly this :) but, I've done it just enough to know that I'm really really good at breaking stuff, and I don't want to wait to fully transition from windows. Hence the need for full system backups
Install everything from store, and you should be fine. If you see a tutorial being too complicated, it is probably not worth following. Set your search engine to past year and see if there are better tutorials.
You might also want to consider atomic distros, they are much harder to mess up, and much easier to restore.
No I'm doing it to learn self hosting, I'm doing the hard stuff on purpose
Oh! in that case may I suggest yachts with docker containers? https://yacht.sh/
Everything on my homeserver is directly installed on the server, keeping them up-to-date is pretty annoying, and permission control is completely non-existent.
Since want to do things the hard way, I believe this can also be a good opportunity to do things in the "better" way (at least IMO).
Ah now that does look promising, I had settled on portainer but this yacht program looks very noob friendly! I'll install it today and check it out! Cheers!
Portainer are great too! But yacht seems to be specifically designed for self-hosting.