[Multiple Problems] Install, errors, startup, wifi, bluetooth, etc

[aPlayer]

Hello people of Linux Mint forums.
I just switched to linux and I do not have any experience with it. My background is Windows, I know that O.S. very, very good but let's jump right into problems, ok?
I have a Legion Y520-15IKBM http://godgetreview.com/lenovo-legion-y ... d-details/ and I am having multiple issues with Linux MInt.

1. When installing first time Linux, can someone tell me in a basic way how to reformat my partitions? ( erase all data on them, set the partitions up again with no info on them and then selecting on which partition i want to put the OS on ). Can also someone explain me all those things presented in the picture bellow?
http://i64.tinypic.com/2n69bp1.jpg and also the Use As and Mount Point stuff?

Also as extra info, I set up a partition of 200 GBs for / and 1.700 for /home and between them for /swap. From what I understood, the / is for linux OS, /swap is for... something, i do not know for what and /home is for file storage and stuff. I do not know if Spotify, Discord, Steam are installed on /home or not. I home /home is for apps and stuff like on Windows, on Drive C i would have my windows and on Drive D games, music, movies and all.
Am I correct? How shall I format my partitions properly? I have 0 clue.

2. After I installed Linux Mint, I had this menu ( first link ) and I selected to check integrity and it gave me 6 errors ( 2nd link ), can someone explain this to me? Yes, I was having the bootable USB with Mint in my laptop. What's going on?
I http://i67.tinypic.com/11weqad.jpg
II http://i65.tinypic.com/vh9m50.jpg

3. My WIFI and Bluetooth do not function at all. When I enable WIFI, it sees nothing and Bluetooth can't be activated, how to fix those two and why it happened?
http://i67.tinypic.com/sli5jn.jpg
http://i63.tinypic.com/102umo1.jpg

4. Always, when I power my laptop it tells me this and I do not know if it is normal or not.
http://i65.tinypic.com/20gzek2.jpg

5. Company of Heroes 2, I have some problems with this game on Steam and yes, it is on linux. After loading a match I lose sound, 0 sound what so ever and after a match when I am returned to the meniu I have sound again. Another thing is after a match it freezez and I must xkill or open system monitor and kill it from there. It is kinda frustrating and maybe you guys can help me fix it. I tried with Steam to verify game files and everything is ok. I do not understand.

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Bottom line, please take time and explain this like you are explaining this to the stupidest person ever. After I understand the basics, I will start to also contribute to this community in form of basic and simple tutorials and stuff, this is my plan.

[Pierre]

Just to address that 2nd point first off:
- you do need to verify that the downloaded ISO file is indeed correct:
https://linuxmint.com/verify.php
select the version that you have downloaded & follow those instructions.

follow the section called Integrity check to check your ISO file.

if that has any errors & that's what is indicated in your 2.11 picture - then the ISO is actually Faulty.

so - you do need to download the ISO again & follow that integrity check.
& if you can't get that to work / can't follow, just what to do:
- then run the inbuilt check that you indicated in pic 2.1 - instead - - You Must Have Zero Errors.

do post back here, once you have managed to do that & now have an ISO with Zero Errors.

[aPlayer]

Geez, don't ask for much do ya ?

First thought for this is check out some of the gazillion how-to's on installing Linux Mint ... either alone or in dualboot with xyz-window$ operating system already in this forum and all over the web. Not trying to be a butthead here but this is the standard, could everyone go ahead and google for me and/or reinvent the wheel AGAIN posts. You are asking people to explain a MASSIVE amount of things associated with gnu/Linux here.

Ma friend, belive me, i searched on google, linux mint forums, youtube before posting here and i do not know if i found stuff because most posts, youtube videos are like : ok, we do this, thick this, check this, next, next, next, yes, do this and done!
When I see those kind of videos on youtube for example, I am just very confused because there is an easy, very easy way to explain that info and the reason why he/she is doing it but no, they handle me like i should've known about linux at a standard level and stuff.
Not cool, definetly not cool, also linux mint documentation on how to install linux is not that rock solid, simple and explained stuff.

[aPlayer]

Geez, don't ask for much do ya ?

First thought for this is check out some of the gazillion how-to's on installing Linux Mint ... either alone or in dualboot with xyz-window$ operating system already in this forum and all over the web. Not trying to be a butthead here but this is the standard, could everyone go ahead and google for me and/or reinvent the wheel AGAIN posts. You are asking people to explain a MASSIVE amount of things associated with gnu/Linux here.

/ = /root , yes it'll include everything for the gnu/Linux operating system, including /home if you don't want to use a separate partition for it. There are files-etc put in a users /home directory or partition which can be used to customize applications and software you install. These are generally .(dot) files or folders. A .dot file/folder isn't visible unless you unhide them in x-file manager or use something like "ls -a" in terminal to display them.

Note: When using many file-managers in gnu/Linux you can use the following to unhide those .(dot) folders/files by pressing the Ctrl key + the H key to unhide them and press that again to hide them again. Is also an option in xyz-file-managers menu to "show hidden" or you click on that again to hide them again.

Are also system wide files in the gnu/Linux operating system too, that will make configuration-etc of applications installed the same for any/all users across the entire operating system if those users .(dot)-etc aren't present in that users /home.

How x-user prefers to layout partitioning is highly dependent on what a given gnu/Linux user prefers or how/what they're doing with a particular operating system/install. Do you want a separate /home partition ? There's a dizzying array of reasons someone could want to do that vs leaving it under the /root. ie: Do you want one ? Do you want the /home partition encrypted etc etc etc.

Software will be installed to /root for that OS period and if /home is also in it, as mentioned the /root partition will also contain everything that's in it, arghhhh, though stand-alone software can also be run directly from a users /home partition too. Regardless of whether it's on /root or /home is on a separate partition. Also if you leave /home on that same /root partition all the data for your user will also be stored there. Pictures, videos, data etc etc. So generally leave enough space-room in / to be comfortable and not run out of space in it at some future point. That can again vary wildly, though 50-100gbs is plenty (for me, errrr, again it depends. See edit:). Obviously MORE if you have huge amounts of data for your user and don't have a separate /home partition. Then size /root or the dedicated /home appropriately for how much space you want. ie: If you tend to have 2Tb's of data for your user and leave /home as a directory/folder under /root, then yeah you'd need to make the /root partition big enough for that.

Edit: FRICK !!! Someone can easily setup and even auto mount a shared partition ( used by several gnu/Linux Os's installed on a particular computer) or a separate data partition on a computer too that only has 1 gnu/Nix os or can even format the dang shared partition as a filesystem window$ can recognize/use (ie: ntfs etc etc) and share a partition between 1 or more gnu/Linux Os's and a Window$ operating system on the computer too. Which is what I tend to do ( I don't use window$ anymore so no need for ntfs-etc), I have a whatever sized ext4 partition I can access and use between the 3 or so gnu/Nix OS's on this laptop. It automount's on boot via an entry added to the /etc/fstab file, errrr GOOGLE if interested in auto mounting a partition in Nix.

Swap = in gnu/Linux is like virtual memory ( paging file in Window$), the Nix os puts things in the swap to free up memory if they aren't being used to free up memory for other uses. The way gnu/Linux ( the how's and why's) are a fairly big subject in and of itself. How to alter and influence it as well. ie: Someone can change swappiness and many other things to influence how Nix uses swap or handles vm = virtual memory.

Why would you want to change swappiness ? The higher a gnu/Linux Os's swappiness is set, the more the kernel has a tendency to pull things out of RAM (physical memory) and stash them onto swap. Generally speaking the default swappiness in most distro's is 60. The more physical memory you have, the more would have to be used before swapping kicks in and starts taking stuff out of RAM and into swap ( swap partition or swap file etc etc. Stuff like these too.) I always tend to lower swappiness and it can have a real impact on improving a low memory pc's performance. If there's plenty of free RAM available, someone doesn't want the operating system swapping things out to disk, ( disk i/o or disk thrashing is a bad thing, it's much slower than having things in actual RAM. With the OS putting things onto disk and then pulling them off of it vs just leaving them in RAM.) So a person doesn't want the OS to do that until actual RAM is getting close to being used up.

To set swappiness ( well one way to do it )someone would edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file and add a line as follows in it.

Code: Select all

vm.swappiness=10

In that 10, is setting swappiness to a value of 10, which is generally accepted as the right value for personal computing gnu/Linux. Arghhh ... googling-etc swappiness is probably best here. The subject(s) involved with swap and all the options someone has pertaining to it is pretty dang extensive, like pretty much everything gnu/Linux, shrugs.

Swap size: ? Really depends, cause again no shortage of ways someone sets up or prefers to go about swap in gnu/Linux. If you're using a swap partition a general rule of thumb is a partition the same size as the amount of RAM installed on the system, 1 to 1. or slightly larger than the amount of RAM the computer has. This is a very general rule, as noted can be A LOT to it and depending on hardware specs, what a user prefers etc etc.

The problems you're experiencing, would tend to say google the errors etc. or start support thread in the appropriate sections of these forums. Including stuff like the output of "sudo inxi -Fxz", which means you type that into a terminal and post the output it gives in code tags. This will tell people much about the hardware you have on that computer. Again not that I'm a mod etc here, it's just generally good practice and netiquette to provide basic information when asking for help. ie: Your hardware specs, the version of Linux Mint or other software you're using and having an issue with etc.

Also yeah, once again, actually trying to search for it in the forum is nice too. Not in any way meant as a reprimand, it's not but almost every gnu/Nix forum will have a sticky in support sections or other places with info like "how to get help and what to include when asking for support" threads etc. Which yeppers, majority of people never bother reading or following any of those things. It can really help users here, to help you. Even stuff as simple as the title of a support thread can make a major difference in whether or not anyone here notices or tries to help. ie: A thread titled "HELP ME, DANG IT !!!" vs "I have a problem with video in LM 19 Cinnamon"

Sincerely attempting to help ya out, give some general info or pointers on the questions you've asked etc. Think Linux Mint is a kickbutt distro, so hope you get any issues sorted and enjoy. Also welcome to Mint forums.

So, basically, the / on a partition is where the linux will be and everything else that you install via software manager and /swap is for ram data that it is put in there for some reasons and then taken back into ram for some reasons.
WHat's the deal with /home?
I do not know man, you lost me so hard.

[JeremyB]

When I install Linux I normally don't bother with creating my own partitions and let the installer do it and haven't had any issues even when installing along side Windows 10 on my new HP laptop. I did clone the HDD prior in case something might happen.

Is Linux Mint installed on the HDD now as it needs to be installed for my wireless fix to work, please post results from terminal for

Code: Select all

lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net; lsusb; rfkill list

[jglen490]

Wish I could see the link with the picture, but that aside. As noted, above you can let the installer decide what your partitioning should be, or you can decide yourself - both are options. A SWAP partition, or a swap file (not the same things) are usually accepted needs for a Linux system. Linux manages memory (physical and virtual) a little differently than Windows does. So a SWAP partition, or swap file, will be used at times to hold "pages" of memory while higher priority processes use RAM. It doesn't happen that much, under normal conditions. For you as a new user, don't worry about "swappiness". It's too esoteric to bother with on a simple home /personal computer/laptop.

I don't know if you are dual booting with Windows, it probably doesn't matter since that laptop has some great specs and storage. So let me give you a real world example from my desktop machine. I have one partition for EFI which is 500MB, my / is about 40GB, my /home is about 400GB, and my SWAP is 8GB. EFI takes care of booting with a UEFI motherboard, / holds programs and logs and system configurations, while /home holds personal data files and person configurations for programs. SWAP is as described earlier and is equal in size to my RAM.

In my case, for partitioning purposes, EFI is on sda1, / is on sda2, and /home is on sda3. SWAP is on a SWAP partition, the EFI is fat32, and both / and /home are on ext4 which is a Linux journaling filesystem. There are some proponents of putting both / and /home on the same partition, such as /sda2 - and that's fine. I find mine to be easier to manage for various system admin reasons.

The installer will allow you to select an option, called "Something else" which is a manual partitioning option. Or you can just let the installer do its own thing and you will end up with a perfectly usable system.

If you are able to do so, use an ethernet connection to your router so that you will at least have an internet connection to find wifi drivers and the like. I keep a 75 footer handy at all times. I haven't used it in a while, but it's available if I need it.

If you can try all this, the rest of your problems will be minor and are things that are fixed every day on this forum.