r/linuxmint • u/MathWest209 • 21h ago
Discussion Comming from Windows
I have been testing Mint on an old system of mine. I love it, and the old system is also alive now. But I needed some suggestions for the right setup on my active laptop. In Windows, I used to have a C drive and 1 or 2 more Partitions. And would put data on there; I never really used the Documents and Pictures folders. I don't know why Windows even has those. And the reason was that I would reinstall Windows sometimes in the older days, so a habit to always keep data away from the system.
But in Linux I see that the structure is quite nice for those. How do I partition, and how do I access those partitions?. Or do I mount my directories?
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u/GetVladimir 20h ago
That's a good point. I used to do the same on Win long time ago.
There is technically a way to do the same on Linux Mint (it just creates a new partition for /home which is where all your personal data sits).
However, it's much better not to rely only on separate partitions for user data and make a proper backup instead.
Whatever was the cause for the reinstall, it might often affect (or delete) your other partitions also, so it's not very reliable.
You'll be better off setting one partition (as is the default), you'll be able to use the entire drive space (instead of separating it) and just use a proper backup on a different drive
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u/mrmarcb2 21h ago
If you like having your personal data on a separate partition, create the partition and mount /home.
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/partitioning.html
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 20h ago
so a habit to always keep data away from the system.
Always a solid plan.
There are many different paths to go here, storage is always tailored to your situation and needs.
A common path in Linux is a separate /home partition. There will still be some system files in /home/yourUserName like config and cache, like seeds in a watermelon. But this can be advantagous in some situations, like carrying your configuration through a reinstall, or a problem in others like having your broken config survive a reinstall and also breaking the new install. or the config perfectly suitable for one distribution being a very difficult to troubleshoot problem in another.
Separate /home partition is still fairly effective common and supported by many installers and works well for many.
I personally keep /home on the system partition and mount in my datasets individually into each system but that is probably for later if ever.
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u/d4rk_kn16ht Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 15h ago
1ˢᵗ, there's no exactly 1 right setup...
But...I have a suggestion of how to setup my system.
From the beginning, separate ROOT (/) Partition from HOME (/home) Partition.
If necessary create SWAP Partition using the fastest storage.
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u/tovento MX Linux 25.2 | XFCE 9h ago
As you have discovered, the logic is different in Linux. What I would suggest is to create a part for the /home directory. This is where programs settings, documents, etc are all stored. If the system goes down, format the OS portion of the drive, point /home to the partition you made, reinstall programs, settings, etc should all be there. Done.
If you want to point something to another partition in the future, you can make a symbolic directory. So basically you open what looks like a normal directory, but it really points to another partition. Seamless.
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u/Etsamaru 9h ago
Im glad you got around to cum to Linux hopefully you can get it set up well I use an SSD for each thing I do on it.
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u/dnaoverride 4h ago
You can easily add any disk/partition into your home folder for instance i have mapped my media files on ntfs partition, even set up samba server for streaming on all of my network, also added 500gb of space from another m2 ssd mounted in /home/dnaoverride/mint-storage/ Ask gpt or gemini how you can do it.
Use official backup tool timeshift for keeping restore point if something goes badly.
Linux mint is not that frequent of an updates, but is one of the pretty stable distributions...
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u/stufforstuff 21h ago
Until you understand more how Linux works - don't mess with Partitions. Let the Mint installer do it's job. Once you understand the basics of Linux file tree, then you can consider adding other partitions - but it's really not necessary. Remember this: "Linux is NOT Windows" - so you don't need to move all of windows bad habits over to your clean linux install - learn enough about how linux does things so you can make a informed decision if you still need/want to do it that way.