What's the difference between "/" and "/@" and "/home" and '/@home"in btrfs?

[koesherbacon]

Hello LMDE Forums. I'm having a little difficulty in finding out the answer to this question about the btrfs file-system. I love the idea of taking snapshots and having the opportunity to restore to a previous one if I make a mistake while becoming more accustomed to the much more advanced features of the Debian-Based LMDE4 as opposed to the more simple Ubuntu-Based Mint. What I can't figure out is the difference between "/" vs "/@" and "/home" vs "/@home", that are selectable during the OS setup installation.

Just so you're aware, I always keep my "/home" directory on a separate partition just in case I mess something up or decide to install a different Linux distro, that way I always have access to my most important files and folders. On Amazon Prime Day, I even ordered a brand-new SSD, which I intend to partition and use for the sole purpose of creating snapshots of both my "/" vs "/@" Root Directory and my "/home" vs "/@home" Home Directory.

In case my current partition scheme is important information to know as well, here's my setup:
I use a 931TiB M.2 SSD  ¹ as my primary means of storage partitioned with a 42GiB Root, a 873GiB Home, and finally 16GiB Swap (to match my installed RAM). The new Snapshot-Backups device is a 1.82TiB SATA SSD  ² which I believe I will roughly double the size of each partition for my Snapshots (excluding the Swap). If you think there's a better way to do this, I'd be eager to learn about that as well!

So I just got a little side-tracked, so back to my main questions. Could somebody explain to me which are the better choices here? Should I stick with the regular old "/" and "/home", go for both "/@" and "/@home", or a combo with one of each like "/" and "/@home" or "/@" and "/home"?

Just to make this a little more readable, here's my question with the '[ code ]' formatting:

Code: Select all

What's the difference between these directories in btrfs?
/ vs /@
/home vs /@home
... And which of the following do you recommend using as my mount-points for this installation?
/ plus /home
/@ plus /@home
/ plus /@home
/@ plus /@home

I'm trying to teach myself about the more advanced aspects of Linux and while I realize that I could do this using Arch or one of its derivatives, I keep finding myself testing out the LMDE4 LiveUSB again and again. Even though I'm branching out and trying to become a more advanced user, I feel that LMDE4 is going to be a rather good stepping-stone since it is very familiar but at the same time offers an array of features not found with typical Ubuntu-based distros.

I don't want to go straight for vanilla Debian at the moment because I'm a fan of the Cinnamon Desktop, and you can't get a better version than the one provided by you, the developers, of Cinnamon in the first place. I realize I could also try to branch out into Arch by using the Cinnamon version of Manjaro or something else, but for right now, I think that LMDE4 is exactly where I need to be in order to advance my understanding of Linux altogether while at the same time continung to use something that's extremely familiar to me. Naturally, I could also install Arch, Manjaro, or anything else onto a separate HDD/SDD and dual boot into LMDE4 and another OS as well, but I'll tackle that idea in due time if I decide that's something I'd like to pursue.

I hope you and your families are staying safe and healthy during the pandemic! Thanks so much!

〜 Ev


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¹ Which I understand is equal to 1TB
² That's the same as 2TB

[fizzatbeyond]

My understanding is it really is just a naming convention thing for subvolumes in btrfs. The ubuntu standard is /@ and /@home. I have my filesystem laid out using the ubuntu naming convention because timeshift wants it that way, and I didn't have a reason not to do it that way.