How To Install Linux (with or w/o separated /home partition)
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- čas přidán 25. 07. 2024
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Installing a Linux distro is a complex step if you’ve never done it. You’re messing with your hard drive, and it can cause some issues and potentially wipe all your data. It’s scary, and not very intuitive if you’ve never installed another OS on your computer.
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Linux is a diverse system, and this is also reflected in its installer software. you basically will find 4 major options. - The Ubuntu installer, called Ubiquity - The elementary installer, that only PopOs uses for now, but elementary OS will move to it for elementary 6 - The Manjaro / calamares installer - The Fedora / Anaconda installer
Keyboard and language selection
There is nothing much to it, just choose the language you want for your distro install, and the kayboard layout. Don’t hesitate to try out the various weird keys to make sure that everything is correct and works well with your keyboard. Automatic detection is not too bad either to help you get to the right keyboard layout if you’re confused by the many, many layout available.
Partitions
The first thing you’ll have to take care of is select what kind of install you want to do. Generally, you’ll get 3 choices: - Erase the whole disk and install the distro - Install alongside your existing OS - Select what to do manually
Probably a lot of you have heard about having a separate /home partition, and what that would mean. Honestly, if you’re a beginner, do not bother with that. Having a separate /home partition can be useful if you plan to change linux distributions often and don’t want to bother with copying your data back to your new system.
If you really want to have a separate /home partition, you must choose the manual partitioning option. Be aware that any errors here could result in your existing OS being wiped, or data being lost, so be very careful. Let’s see how to manually partition and install your distro:
Manual install
Linux stores everything in a main directory called “/”. You can put the various subfolders of “/” in their dedicated partitions, such as /home, which is the folder that contains all of the users and their files. To do so, you can use the manual partitioning tool of the installer to map the /home folder to a specific partition. We will need to create multiple partitions, which are virtual slices of your disk. We’ll need one for the system, one for your /home directory, one for swap, and a final one for EFI, if your computer requires it.
You’ll need to create first a “/” partition that will be the one where the system is installed. This one should be sufficiently large to host all the programs you might want to install, so don’t skimp on disk space there ! Most distributions use the ext4 filesystem, which is probably your best choice if you don’t need any specific features, so select that, and create the partition, mapping it to the “/” mount point.
Next, you’ll need to create a second partition out of the free disk space on your drive. Make it as big as possible, it’s going to be your place to store your user files. Use ext4 as well, and select /home as a mount point.
If your computer is relatively recent, you’ll also be asked to create an EFI partition, to store the files that will allow your various systems to boot. This partition should be no less than 512 Mb.
If your computer doesn’t have much RAM, like 4Gb or less, you also need to create a swap partition. This will be a place where program data can go when your RAM is full, and will avoid your system grinding to a halt when that happens. The general recommendation is to use twice the size of your computer’s RAM, si if you have 4GB of RAM, create an 8Gb swap partition, and use the swap mount point.
Finally, you have to tell the system where to install the bootloader. This is a small program that allows you to start the various operating systems you have on your machine, and select which one to start if you have more than one. I’d recommend you put it on your main system partition, the one you attributed to “/”.
User creation
You don’t have much to fill in here: just your full name, a user picture, the username that will be used as the name of your user’s folder in the /home directory, and a password. Select something you can remember here, it’s going to be asked of you every time you want to install software, or change some settings, so don’t pick something too random.
Once your user is done, you’ll just have to wait for the installer to finish, and will be asked to reboot the system, and remove the install media. - Věda a technologie
Real men don't make back ups, they just cry allot :P
Hahaha true
GOIN IN RAW
Thank you! This is exactly the "Partitions for (slightly smarter than) Dummies" explanation I've been searching for.
You're welcome ;)
Funny enough I was just trying to install Red Hat 5 from 1998 in a virtual machine. The installation process definitely changed a lot in the past twenty years haha.
If setting a swap partition, do not forget to configure the "swappiness" in sysctl (sudo sysctl vm.swappiness = [0-100] for immediate change, but lost on reboot; sudo (nano|vi|etc.) /etc/sysctl.conf for persistent change, but only on reboot or sysctl reload: sudo sysctl -p). Low values [e.g. 15] only use the swap partition as RAM is full or nearly full. High values [e.g. 60] use the swap partition regardless of free RAM. A value = 0 never uses the swap partition and a value = 100 always uses the swap partition.
Regardless of how much RAM one has, a swap partition is NECESSARY for hibernation. If the only practical reason for keeping a swap partition to enable system hibernation, then size the partition so that it is RAM-size + sqrt(RAM-size) (i.e. 16 GB RAM + sqrt(16 GB) = 20 GB swap partition). For only this purpose, a low swappiness value is preferable, but it cannot be zero. I the default value on my distro is 15 (use 'cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness' to check your system's default value), so I did not need to change that. With 20 GB RAM, however, I set my swap partition to 24.5 GB. The reason for the additional allocation (+ sqrt(RAM-size)) has something to do with the process of copying RAM to swap partition, including the block size of the files system: size of file(s) < size on disk).
Keeping a swap partition that is double the RAM, however, only seems reasonable if one has very little RAM (< 8 GB) or large storage (> 1 TB). I have done the "Chrome tabs" experiment: 30 tabs used about half of my 20 GB of RAM. Given that, a system with 2 GB to 8 GB of RAM probably only needs an 8 GB swap partition, with a high swappiness value... or an 11 GB partition for hibernating an 8 GB RAM system.
Finally... Linux distros are VERY SMALL compared to Windows and macOS. My Linux system partition is only 80 GB + the 24.5 GB swap (104.5 GB together). I have many programs and other packages installed... 2,912 in total... as well as some personal file duplicates (for persistence on LiveUSB persistence of screensavers, wallpaper, etc.)... still 55.3 GB free. But, I keep my personal files in a separate (Windows compatible) partition (180 GB; 98.6 GB free), so that I only need to keep one copy of my docs, pix, etc. on my storage device; to share with my Windows partition (100 GB, including OS managed swap-file; 45 GB free).
Even on the 32 GB (28.9 GiB) LiveUSB version of my Linux desktop, I have a separate 11 GiB (ExFAT) data partition. My entire Linux system fits on a 17.9 GiB ext4 partition, after "squashing". :-)
The LiveUSB take my daily driver with me to run on just about any modern (UEFI) computer. I can use any of my personal files... except the 113 GiB of HD movies. But, those are duplicated on other portable storage devices (i.e. thumb-drive, SD/microSD, and portable HDD). Point is... I can EASILY fit my home Linux system in my pocket.
Try doing that with Windows or macOS.
Good reminder !
@@TheLinuxEXP: Cheers. I wish I had reminded myself to proofread better. Missing and repeated words, incorrect punctuation, and... if I am not mistaken... a bit of TMI. Re-reading that, now, was painful. smh
@@sapinho-sapeca I would go for 10 as vm.swappiness value, you can always bump it up if you experience issues.
What do you mean by "squashing"? Can you please send a link to a resource explaining it?? I want to have a portable Linux OS at hand, but I cannot find a way to put a few config files and other stuff on it :/
@@saharshbhansali250 - I cannot predict whether or not a link will be permitted on CZcams comments, so I _refuse_ to include links in CZcams comments.
Google "squashfs".
My only interaction with squashfs ("squashing filesystem") is when I run _MX_ Snapshot. After configuring the intended snapshot and start the snapshot process, the first message in the console output is something like "Squashing filesystem..." + ASCII (text) progress bar with percentage.
When complete, my 18 GB to 20 GB system partition is captured in a 6 GB to 7 GB (snapshot) ISO file.
After creating the snapshot of my system, I use _MX_ Live USB Maker to create a _writable_ Live OS on a thumb-drive. I also create a separate (ExFAT) data partition, for accessing files from systems which cannot read ext4 filesystem.
I run _MX_ LInux, btw. smh :-) :-P
But, I have used various distros of desktop Linux since 2002... Red Hat/RHEL since 1999... and UNIX/Solaris/AIX since 1992.
Light and sound are steadily improving. Keep at it Nick!
What do you think? When partitioning the drive manually, which partitions should be primary and which should be logical and why?
really solid advice, cogently presented. I'm sure you haven't covered it - I mean why would you?! - I'm looking for dual boot Linux-Windows (I know....) disk & partition strategies. This channel continues to be absolute gold.
Have you covered RAID/LVM/other physical & logical disk management strategies?
Pop OS instaler and gnome costumizatios are fantastic.
Absolutely
@@TheLinuxEXP i have problem with install Pop OS. I can't make more Then 4 Porfirion and I don't know how dill with that.
Thank you! How big should the /boot partition be?
i'd did this on several years ago, nice share!
Hey can you make a video on the ZFS storage system v other in Linux installation? also how to setup flatpack on distress like elementary os!
4:47 lol that hit me hard
very nicely explained! I installad Linux mint on my HP Laptop with brand new, empty SSD drive. Installation was easy and Linux works but always as I start the laptop I get a message " no boot device found" it does not matter how I select it in bios. I always must go at start to boot options and select manually " Linux" from the list and press enter, after this it works quite normally until next start. I definitely have made something wrong but am not able to find out what,
Best Ubuntu install and instructional video on the internet.
Hey so I have a machine with a 300gb SSD and 1TB HDD. I'd like my home directory on the HDD I believe. One question. If I've been learning bash, will this alter my input at all such as (x/xX) /home? Or will it still just be /home?
Hey which type of new partition to use, logical or primary, pls replay detail
It sounds easy, but any vids on how to backup home folder? LUKS full disk encryption makes cloning awkward and I’ve read a few times now that backing up the home folder and dropping it into a fresh install is easier and more reliable than cloning and imaging?
Is there a way I can just have an ntfs first primary partition then have virtual drive images to mount the Linux file system? How would I script for grub to boot such?
Thanks for the vid i came here just too see if I should use EFI partition cause I was unsure but then at the end I made my 120GB ssd have 512mb of EFI rest were etx4 for root and swap of 16GB cause Ik I will need it
Any other installers I missed? Any use cases for separate partitions?
what about 2 linux distros? and w10 sadly... i would like to share "documents folders" within the 2 pinguins
the firs distro installed will install (and control) the grub? in 2015 installed seven distros on a laptop, manjaro kde, mx15,couple of buntus... i dont remember... there was uno cub linux, and one based on sid... "semplice"... i forgot almost everything.
but i remember that mx15 controlled the grub... mi actual candidates are solus budgie for a rolling and not decide yet btw kubuntu and pop for a *buntu
yes! do an arch installer Please!!!!!
Oh yeah there's that one!!
I might, at some point, do that, but it's just so... Boring and filming an Arch install doesn't mean it's going to work for someone else 😅
Fantastic video as always! Just one question: do I need a swap partition if I have a ssd? I’ve been told that creating a swap partition when using an ssd can damage the drive. Thanks again for the informative vid!
Thanks a lot! Wether you use an SSD or a HDD, if you don't have any swap partition, your computer will freeze as soon as it runs out of ram.
Swap will not damage your SSD, unless you have really low RAM and the swap partition is sollicités very often.
Recent SSDs have really high longevity in terms of read and write, so you should be good
@@TheLinuxEXP that's good to know. I'll keep it mind.
Thanks once again for a great video. Your channel produces some really good content.
I need help. I have been trying for weeks to install Linux to a bootable USB drive. I tried over a dozen of the common tools. None results in anything bootable, but ventnoy results with a small primary partition at the end of the drive that when I attempted to boot gave me the grub prompt. Any attempt to format a ext4 partition fails. If I make a primary partition at the beginning of the drive I can format it fat32,ntfs, or ext3. Trying to make a swap partition fails. I have to use dd if=zero to kill the partition table and MBR between attempts because remnants of the last thing I tried always seem to remain and causes more errors
Please make a video on best backup software for linux and how to backup your files manually.
Very well explained. Thanks!
Finally a good video about linux partitions.
I don’t need to make swap partition if I don’t make advanced partitioning right?
I was wondering if you could put /boot efi, /root on one disk (sda) ------- /home on other disk (sdb)…I won't be using a swap partition, I'll be making a swap file. This would be at install.
I will be using 2 NVMe drives. I used SATA drives in this example but it's still the same.
I have LaTex installed in my dual boot PC and want to access LaTex software from both OS without installing same thing twice. Can you tell how to do that for any software that can run on both Linux and Windows?
I have a question! Many OS's I've tried to install in dual boot with windows 10 (elementary being one of them also arch) have a problem, when I install distributions like pop or mint or manjaro the grub menu works fine but with any other distribution it doesn't show the grub menu and I can't choose to get into the Linux install is there a way to solve that
Install grub-customizer and press save button to update grub. The app will show all the entries installed. If you don't see windows entery, os-prober is probably not installed (most probable for arch installs). Then reboot and open grub-customizer and press save to update grub. You can also change the time out in this app. :)
could you talk about LVM and how it works ?
I second this
Great video. My issue if you or anyone can help me. I like popos but for some reason I can’t install it with my 2080 super installed it logs me out of the live session. I was told use another video card then install my 2080 then drivers their has to be a better way
you could try to make the install without a GPU. On some distros like on openSUSE using AutoYast you can preconfigure the installer
Thank you! 😊
how do you dual boot with windows on one drive and linux on a seperate drive
YES! Exactly that! Don't make a /home partition because most of the time you will mess your own new clean install with the old config files and even there could be the reason your system got broken in the first place... What I would like to see is a video explaining how to install over EFI and GPT since you need to manually create a partition and sometimes you doesn't have the option set to tell the system it's the EFI boot one and you not only need to flag it but also type yourself or ends up with the OS not booting at all.
A lot of people fail to explain that in many distros and even worse trying to use an already created one to add more distros and get a dual boot system (even full Linux based)
I've never been a fan of having a separate /home partition.
I never saw the use and it always created so many conflicts and issues...
What happens to me on more or less every second computer I install linux on, is that I need to change some settings in the bios to make the live medium boot at all. For example for Manjaro one has to disable fast boot. So for me, that happens regularly and that is also something, that might confuse someone who is new to all this. And after "messing around" in the bios, the partitioning really almost is no issue anymore ;)
However, I know this problem is so hard to address in a video like this. It seems to me that every PC has a different bios, especially Laptops!
i want a distro to have "install alongside windows" option like Ubuntu, but i don't like Ubuntu. Is there any other distro that does this?
Shouldn't the structure follow this path: /boot > /swap > /root > /home ?
Very helpful content
I use a separate /home partition (not because of config files) but because I have 1 SSD and 1 HDD, so I installed /home on the entire HDD and let all the other stuff which is /, /boot/efi and swap (as partition) for the SSD.
My SSD is just 240 GB. I couldn't install the whole / + /home inside it. I play games, I need huge storage for them. I need space and I don't have enough money to buy a 1 or 2 TB SSD to get rid completely of the HDD, so they're still useful for storage. The SSD is just faster, but keeps being small and expensive for high storages (at least, where I live in).
Can I install without home partition
And store all files in boot partition
I have a question, at the Linux Installation is it possible to change where are the programs are going to be installed? I have installed KDE Neon on my laptop with a 125GB SSD partition and a 500GB HDD partition for Linux, my problem being that I install a lot of programs and the SSD partition fills too easily, I am trying to find a way to change the installation place of programs to the 500 GB partition.
Yeah I think you have to change the /usr mount point to the new partition using /etc/fstab. I am not sure though, because I haven't done this myself.
I think u also need to add shutdown hook to mkinitcpio or your init system config file (under hooks = "")
@@potatogod3000 Thanks for the help!
@@Wanderer3639 you are welcome bro.
nice, BUT you didn't go into details on where to put the /boot, when to chose primary (default) or logical. It sounds like you said put /boot on / but that wasn't an option for me, was greyed out. My linux install didn't even ask me to create home, just / and /boot. I ended up with putting boot into the old mint partition instead of the new mint partition, and I want to get rid of the old mint. Another thing I'm finding is during check sum, I pass first test, but not able to see proper result on other 2 tests for authenticity, integrity etc
Very hard to find a linux page or video that doesn't leave out some of the basics for newbies especially operating from linux when your windows options are dead
I am giving up on linux because I cannot find any step-by-step instructions on how exactly to install the thing. Rufus, Calamares , and BalenaEtcher to not work; I want to install it on a partition that I have created. Neither of the show that partition. I have spent all day on this project with out success so I am giving up.
What if i have an NTFS partiton from my removed win10, which contains alot of important data that i want to use them again?
Is linux able to read/write NTFS?
Sure, it can. I use a setup in which my main boot drive is ext4 and my other removable drive for file storage is NTFS
Can write/delete only if disabled fast boot in Windows. At least with Mint.
Thank you!
Useful video
Thanks :)
Can you give us an update in the coming months on your attempts to "de-google"? your channel got me on this path. do you run a NAS at home, do you plan on getting one. Would like to see your take on Nextcloud.
I did that recently, check out the vlog playlist :)
For newer OS, you don‘t need the swap partiotion anymore, the data is saved in a file
Thanks 👍
You're welcome :)
13:20 yeah, unless you want to feel the pain of using gentoo
Hey, have you ever tried a twm before? If not, I encourage you to try one. Best of luck.
No, I haven't, because I just don't like the principle of them :)
I will, however, play with the auto tiling feature on PopOS
Why installing a debian is messy ?
This is definitely not how to install Arch 😂
No beginner wants to do that 😅
@@TheLinuxEXP 100% . Your content is getting better. Love it
Thanks a lot :) I'm doing my best ^^
he showed a clip with manjaro so... /s
Isn't breakjaro Arch
Cool thanks for the Great video
Would you do a GTK vs QT video?
I don't think I will, I'm not technical enough for that :)
Is there a way to beautify grub?
I seem to remember you could put a background image in GRUB but I don't quite remember how to do that
what is your video editor please
DaVinci Resolve :)
@@TheLinuxEXP please how to setup my manual proxy in xfce like gnome i dont know how to do that please help !
WOW! You've really come a long way from this one! LOL!
Its basically Ubuntu manual install. Sure every GNU/Linux follows somewhat same structure but for a newcomer to understand the small difference. I like your content. Every week I wait for open source news. So please take this as a constructive criticism.
I'm going to do it anyways when I do a full rebuild of my computer and get a new hard drive.
Crap I mess with my computer office cz not notice the boot loader selector while install ubuntu,.. It was Windows but now its start grub every start up,... 😅 No big problem just type exit and walah Windows come out 😂
I don't think I would need a swap area if I have 64GB of ram
How did I switch to Linux? Well, first I bought a new 1TB hard drive. They are not that expensive today, those good old spinny things. There I installed Linux Mint 18, to try it out. Later I copied my data files from the Windows disk to my new main disk and retired that old one (it had started to find some bad sectors). A year later I bought an SSD where I installed Linux 19, with the /home directory on the spinny disk. Not extremely fast, but decent. I'll shift to SSD purism one day, I guess. When the prices come a bit down from the currrent heights.
Edit: If I already have had Linux for years now, why am I watching this? Because there's one thing I learned about Linux: I still don't know doodly-squat about Linux. Every video can have valuable information that I can use in the future.
from my understanding it is not easy to install Linux in such a way as the OS is on a small ssd (20Gb) and all additional user files and software on a seperate hdd (2tb) similar to one would normally do on windows systems
It’s actually easier on Linux :)
@@TheLinuxEXP so i understand i can create a seperate storage drive and move my /home folder there but how would i ensure that software like steam, codeblock, brasero and any other package i get from the software manager are also installed on that drive
I have only about a 20gb ssd( rly old laptop) so after a fresh linux install and update it that about 16gb of that 20, i then can't install any other hardware
The playlist is wrong. With duplication.
Really? I'll take a look
For me the best GNOME implementation is the Manjaro GNOME . Even though i don't use GNOME but in my opinion vanilla GNOME is ugly .
BTW i use Arch 😂
Manjaro isn't arch
Rad mouse!
Keep in mind that when you have a separate partition for Home, you need to stick to the same distro. Changing eg. from Ubuntu to Arch will mess up a few things.
This is a great video however I don't know how valuable partitioning is for /home if you are syncing data to Google or Amazon drive. I do believe in doing partitions if you are dual booting multiple operating systems. I don't even partition anymore in server environments most operating systems will let you resize drives while the server is powered on meaning you can avoid an outage.
now I have installed Windows, but I wanna migrate to Linux, I have 3 SSDs, 1st 120GB for the OS, 2nd 240GB for data, and 3rd 512GB for apps. So, this is my partition plan after watched your vid, please correct me if I'm wrong
1st drive 120GB: /, /boot
2nd drive 240GB: /home
3rd dribe 512GB: Idk, I want this drive as apps partition.
if we're installing the app, it'll be installed on / partition, right? how to install the app on others partition? is linux files system allow that?
thanks a lot 🙂
hello sir, is it possible to install linux debian on 18TB Harddisk ?
"don't delete windows partition" wait wut
5:22 Why does it offend people?
Cause some.people are hell bent on saying that it's the only way to install Linux :)
@@TheLinuxEXP oh!
first
No offence, but we do really not need to see you face "all over the screen". Do not learn much from seeing you talk... All IMHO
Plz consider letting the new and un-familiar stuff "lingering" longer on-screen, so that the viewers have more time to absorb and digest the (for them) brand new info etc...
-while you can keep talking in the back-ground, or up in a corner of the screen etc... :)
The viewers are, after all, the one trying to learn something new here, I hope...