New to this Forum and Linux

[Oscar]

Hello all!

I am new to this forum as a member, but I read it regularly. This is a great source of knowledge and amazing vibrant and rich community. It is a big help to new users.

I am quite new to Linux too! About 6 months back, I installed Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon (in dual OS with Windows 10) on my main computer. Since then, I am very satisfied and would like to progressively migrate the family computers to Linux Mint, some in dual OS (Windows and Apple), some in exclusive Linux Mint OS.

As you probably can feel, I am not a techy guy so there is a definite learning curve for me.

Recently I tried to install Linux Mint 21 Vanessa on another pc but I had an issue. I have published a post about it (viewtopic.php?f=46&t=386316&p=2263442#p2263442). I have read the Forum rules, guidelines and policies before making this first post.

Since then and besides the views, there is no replies. Is there something I did wrong in the post? Wrong way to present the problem? Or not interesting problem for the community?
The post was/is long. I simplified it today and presented it differently. That could be the issue?

Let me know so as a new member I can improve my interaction with the community.
Thanks and have a great day.
Hugs!

O.

[Termy]

Welcome to the forums, and indeed to Linux.

I had a quick look at your post; if it's the shortened version, then yes, I expect it was the exhaustive nature of the post. See, some people just don't have the time or energy to bite off that much. I usually don't tackle the more lengthy posts, because of those reasons. That being said, I can certainly appreciate that you wanted to offer plenty of information, and that can absolutely help solve the issue. I guess there's a balance to target, between brevity and verbosity.

Granted, sometimes it just takes longer for someone who can offer some insight comes along. Not everyone knows how to solve all issues in Linux. If you have a lot of views but no or few posts, I would guess it's either the above or the right sort of people have yet to spot the thread. Some topics are so beyond the target audience of Linux Mint, that they're sadly left unresolved, but many don't, as there's a wide array of users here.

[all41]

Hi, the forum guidelines are here:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=83314

[Oscar]

Hello,

Thanks for your replies!

@Termy/ Yes I guess that balance is key. As I am not knowledgeable (yet), I guess I tend to put too much details that are not relevant to the topic/problem. Also with more experience, the title will become much clearer and in line with the point of the post. That helps too I guess.

@all41/ Thanks. I read this before publishing the first post. I will have a look at it again.

Thanks and great day!

[Termy]

[...]

BTW, I had another look at your other thread, and I'm quite impressed with how you laid it out. It's actually pretty solid. Very organised. If we had a thumbs-up emoji, this would be the time. It may be verbose, but it's structured and digestible, where perhaps it initially wasn't so.

[Oscar]

Thanks Termy. I take this as a compliment.
I am not techy at all but have a logical mind (scientific background)... well at least this is why I try.
The first post version had a longer intro and the 'additional details' were inside the body of the post. By removing this part and putting it under, it simplified everything and clarified the issue and highlighted the questions.
Good learning.

[motoryzen]

Oscar,

I hope you enjoy surfing this site and soaking in all the info you can and practice what makes sense to a reasonable degree as much as possible.

Foxclone.org ( AndyMH is the dev who is an active forum member here) foxclone is an excellent system image backup and cloning as well as restoration tool. I definitely recommend you practice using it.

Timeshift is also your friend. Leave it on default settings except , if possible, target a separate physical drive. If another drive isn't possible, then create a Timeshift folder elsewhere other than / ( the forward slap by itself is your root directory). Ya never want that to fill up. I also recommend you disable automatically scheduled to happen snapshot backups. Do them manually ( make yourself some reminders...text yourself..email yourself..whatever) once or three times monthly. Keep no more than 5 maybe 6 Snapshots and keep the oldest one regardless just incase. ( experiments happen..and forest gump put it best with the T shirt idea )

rsync is an excellent ( manual ) backup tool. BE CAREFUL though. READ it. joe Collins ( ezeelinux on youtube and his site) have great info about it and there are plenty of others with a wealth of knowledge about it. Start small with it. create disposable folders and put copies of non-critical things inside the source folder and the target/destination folder liek just random blank blah blah named documents/text files.

rsync -av /home/username/blahblah /media/username/

that command will copy the contents of a folder named blahblah to an externally connected drive and autocreate that folder named blahblah ( the drive can be a thumb drive, sata ssd...the sky's the limit

While I am no dual booting guru ( deepakdeshp AndyMH, probably rene, SMG and many others have far more room to speak about such a topic than I would), I've seen so many examples of why dual booting windows and linux from the same drive just presents a massive minefield of possible problems that it isn't worth the risk nor sanity nor possible data loss imo.

You are safer off installing Linux Mint into a separate physical drive ( while the windows drive is disconnected) on the PC, then you can properly power it off, reconnect the windows drive, and select which "world" to boot into either via access uefi/bios or better yet ( if the motherboard supports it) spamming or holding the appropriate fKey to access the " quick boot" menu or whatever coherent wording it's called.

This keeps windows boot loader and grub on separate homes as they are not designed, and never were, to play nicely together.

sata ssd's are low cost enough these days that with very few locations in the world...there's just about no excuse as to why one isn't using a separate drive for another os world. Teamgroup ssd's, Patriot ( newegg.com) have been on sale for reasonable pricing for many months now ( 1TB patriot is less than 50 bucks, I've seen a teamgroup 2TB ssd for less than 70 bucks a week ago for blackfriday deals. )

I'm not against the idea of dualbooting...but I've seen first hand and through enough posts on this forum alone across the years and windows versions that a windows update ALWAYS has a chance of messing with the functionality of the Linux world one way or another. Disabling TPM, secure boot, fast boot ( aka quick boot as the windows desktop calls it), only cuts down on such a negative possibility from happening. Microsoft's way-to-eager to mess with stuff- reach just keeps reaching.

That is why I truly believe in " separate drives = happier lives = sanity and data in tact.

It also keeps things LESS complicated for when it's time to backup and restore things.

== == =Regardless...remember... When in doubt...BACK it up ...FIRST..... THEN ..try it. Get comfy doing system image backups and restoration or clones and restoring via clones, manual backups ( even if you don't use rsync..just simple copy and pasting stuff to a separate drive like your media files in your home folder ( documents, pictures, music, videos, downloads..save game data folders..etc). take screen shots using PrtSc button on your keyboard of settings of programs or whatever ( just in case you ever need to reinstall Linux Mint starting all over again...makes re-setting up stuff easier and less time spent wondering how something was set up and having to re-experiment with settings again.

I can also show you how to create a bash script file and the gui clickable button launcher to launch it to auto remove crap you don't need and install what you want and don't yet have. ( my thanks to joe collins at ezeelinux for the info)

Also there is the section of " Tutorials " on this site. take some time to browse it too.
Cheers

[Oscar]

Thank you very much for those references.
I will read!
Good day.

[kc1di]

Hello Oscar,
Welcome to the Linux Mint Forums, enjoy the Journey!

[deepakdeshp]

Welcome to the Linux Mint Forum

[Termy]

That is why I truly believe in " separate drives = happier lives = sanity and data in tact.

Agreed! This is why I keep '/' and '/home' on separate drives, and why I have a load of different drives for different things. There are several advantages to doing this, too.