Hey All!!

[Stoof2010]

Brand new user here. Just now installed mint 18.3 cinnamon.
been a microsoft user for a long time. used DOS based systems in the early 90s then into windows. my father started me on old acer machines with only disk drives so that i'd understand the base of the then modern systems and navigate DOS's prompt commands.
fast forward to today where i now have 2 windows 10 systems and one running windows 7.
for years i've been interested in the linux based systems. i remember trying red hat years ago but nothing came of it.
after reading online that mint was the most "beginner" friendly i settled on this distro. i picked up a nice lenovo t420 and now have my first linux system
i followed some basic "first 15 things to do after installing mint" steps and bought the book:
"Linux pocket guide" to try and familiarize myself with the terminal.
it will take some time, but my hope was to get familiar with it enough to get away from windows on all my systems.
thanks for reading!!!
PS i apologize for not using capitols, but i'm typing slowly one handed from a work injury to my dominant hand.

[jimallyn]

Welcome aboard, Stoof2010!

[catweazel]

Hey, you! Welcome aboard!

[Arch_Enemy]

I think you're in for a good time.

Any questions, feel free to ask away.

[Stoof2010]

well im not sure if i did the install optimally.
i did keep the windows OS that was on the laptop.
i tried to do the manual partitioning myself in "something else" but windows already had 3 partitions and after trying to make a "/" root with 20gb like has been suggested it said the rest of the free space was unusable. being unfamiliar with advanced partitioning i did the "install alongside windows option and it worked. it created one primary and then sub divided it into two logical... one root+home and 1 swap.
i have heard having root completely separate makes recovery of a buggy OS easier while still keeping all my home stuff, but i just wanted to get started. its not my main machine and i keep backups of all my personal stuff so for now hopefully it'll be OK.
maybe ill get to love Linux and be able to wipe it with only Linux later and i can make root a primary alone...

[Pierre]

there is some thought, that by using a separate /root & /home partitions,
rather than having the /home directory under the /root directory & in the same partition,,
- in that it can make the recovery of a buggy OS easier . . some folks do that, & others stay with the defaults.

[phd21]

Hi Stoof2010,

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum!

[slipstick]

....and bought the book:
"Linux pocket guide" to try and familiarize myself with the terminal.

Here's a good book I recommend for learning to use the command line - and it's a free pdf download:
http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php

And welcome to the forum!


PS - the terminal doesn't have to be white on black. Open a terminal window, right click in the terminal and select "Show Menubar" from the context menu. Then select Edit->Profile Preferences->Colors and chose your background and foreground colors. I like black text on a pale yellow background.

[kc1di]

Welcome to Linux Mint Forums

[Stoof2010]

....and bought the book:
"Linux pocket guide" to try and familiarize myself with the terminal.

Here's a good book I recommend for learning to use the command line - and it's a free pdf download:
http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php

And welcome to the forum!


PS - the terminal doesn't have to be white on black. Open a terminal window, right click in the terminal and select "Show Menubar" from the context menu. Then select Edit->Profile Preferences->Colors and chose your background and foreground colors. I like black text on a pale yellow background.

thanks!! downloaded the PDF. was going to buy that book but the other one was smaller. probably will still get the hard copy later. couldn’t download copy on phone but i can manually transfer it.
and thanks for the heads up on the terminal customization. was trying to do that but didnt find out how until now

[Stoof2010]

there is some thought, that by using a separate /root & /home partitions,
rather than having the /home directory under the /root directory & in the same partition,,
- in that it can make the recovery of a buggy OS easier . . some folks do that, & others stay with the defaults.

well for now this "default" way will work. since i'm just learning and tinkering it should be OK. at this point if it went buggy i could just reinstall and not lose much since i haven’t really done anything besides update and added ms-fonts and vlc. all my personal stuff is on my desktops and removable media.
but i may do that other way once i am familiar enough to just have Linux rather than a dual boot

[WharfRat]

Hello Stoof2010

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum

[Arch_Enemy]

there is some thought, that by using a separate /root & /home partitions,
rather than having the /home directory under the /root directory & in the same partition,,
- in that it can make the recovery of a buggy OS easier . . some folks do that, & others stay with the defaults.

Yup...there sure is...

Especially if you're running Arch! <see below...>

[Stoof2010]

OK guys.
well my windows 10 started acting wrong. programs wouldn't open. system would just hang.
so, i wiped the slate clean, removed everything, deleted all partitions, and installed mint alone.
made a primary 20gb root, a primary swap of 4 gb (same s amount of ram i have) and made a third primary for the rest of the drive as home.
changed my swappiness so it doesn't start using swap until i hit 90% of my ram (set swappiness to 10)
installed all security updates all levels, made a timeshift snapshot, then installed all other updates and created a second snapshot. that way if things go south i can always restore back to fresh install.

edit: removed question and started thread elsewhere
Thanks

[sdibaja]

OK guys.
well my windows 10 started acting wrong. programs wouldn't open. system would just hang.
so, i wiped the slate clean, removed everything, deleted all partitions, and installed mint alone.
made a primary 20gb root, a primary swap of 4 gb (same s amount of ram i have) and made a third primary for the rest of the drive as home.
changed my swappiness so it doesn't start using swap until i hit 90% of my ram (set swappiness to 10)
installed all security updates all levels, made a timeshift snapshot, then installed all other updates and created a second snapshot. that way if things go south i can always restore back to fresh install.

i did have a question:
so on my last install before the wipe i made a snapshot onto a USB stick hoping when i wiped and reinstalled i could just restore the snapshot and everything would be as it was. but after the install, time-shift didn't recognize the snapshot. showed that the rest of the space was there but didnt show that snapshot.
is it because the partitions were different when i made the old snapshot?
i was hoping that i could create a snapshot on a USB in case i ever have to reformat agan.
can anyone explain why the old snapshot wasn't recognized on the new install? will it work if i take one now with mint being the only thing i have now so i can restore later if i ever have to wipe the drive again?
Thanks

for the time-shift questions I think it is best to ask the developer.
the page is here: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift
and here for your questions, it may have already answered: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues
he seems to answer rapidly

[Stoof2010]

ok thank you. i didn't see it answered there yet and also created a thread in the programs section when i realized it didnt belong here.
thanks again

Edit: removed question above