Setting up new computer with 3 drives

[smokeymtn_ron]

Just got a new computer and want to make sure I get it set up right.
Here is what it has:

256 GB NVMe M.2
Windows 10 (already installed by Dell)

500 GB SSD (from old PC)
Mint 20.3 (will fresh install Mint 21)

1TB HDD
Would like to set this up as a storage drive. Pictures, videos, downloads, etc.

Questions:

1.How do I set up the storage drive so that both Mint and Windows will mount it on start up and it will show up as an option to download and transfer things to. (set it to file system NTFS?)

2.This will be the first time I have used UEFI. Does this look like a good partition setup when I do a fresh install Mint 21?
EFI=550 MiB
/=40 GB
/home=150 GB
/swap=16 GB

3.I have saved '/home' to a external drive. How do I reinstall it after a fresh install of Mint 21?

Any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[Cosmo.]

I do not answer regarding dual boot, because I do not use Windows since years.

#2: 40 GB for / is rather small. You have 500 GB space, so give it more.
Why only 150 GB for /home, when the drive has 1 TB?
A swap partition is senseless and reduces flexibility, if later the partition scheme must get altered. Mint creates at installation automatically a swap file, which will be then inside of the / partition.
The actually needed space for swap (file) depends from 2 factors: How much RAM is installed and do you want to hibernate.

#3: When you install Mint choose "something else" as installation method. Select this partition and make sure, that the option to format is deselected (if there are already data), but choose as mount point /home.

[Jo-con-Ël]

256 GB NVMe M.2
Windows 10 (already installed by Dell)

500 GB SSD (from old PC)
Mint 20.3 (will fresh install Mint 21)
(...)
2.This will be the first time I have used UEFI.

First of all you need to know about a bug when installing on secondary disk in the same way as when installing on USB disk. When Windows is installed on UEFI mode on main disk (nvme), installer will place grub-efi loader on Windows disk EFI partition by default. Never mind you create a dedicated EFI partition on Linux Mint disk, you wont be able to select it on installing.

If you want installer place loader on LM disk and keep EFI partition on Windows disk untouched, you will need to workaround this problem before trying to install (unpluging/disconnecting Windows disk or removing EFI partition flags on Windows disk) and re-connect Windows disk or re-flag its EFI partition after installing.

Also you can install w/o apply those workarounds let it install on nvme EFI partition or solve that problem after installing as indicated on pbear's post links.

[AndyMH]

I'll disagree with cosmo on the size of /. My system drive (512GB ssd):

for years used to be 30GiB on a 256GB SDD, never seen much more than 20GiB used (a lot installed), but I don't use flatpaks or snaps. I have a swap partition, but only because I've always had one and too lazy to change it. You don't need one, by default mint uses a 2GB swap file. I think there is still a use case for a swap partition if you hibernate (I don't), in which case it needs to be the same size as your RAM.

No EFI partition - I boot legacy not UEFI. Your EFI partition = size 100MB, format fat32 and set the flags esp and boot.

Note there is a bug in the installer for LM20 and think still present in LM21, it will put grub in the first EFI partition it finds, not what you tell it. Likely you would end up with grub in the EFI partition on your win drive. Easiest fix is to disconnect/remove the win drive before install. If difficult, say so, there are other fixes.

Your 1TB drive, I would suggest two partitions on it, one for data sharing with win, format ntfs, the other 60GB format ext4 and use it for timeshift snapshots. Do not use timeshift with the defaults and a small / partition (saves snapshots in /). For mint to mount your ntfs partition on boot you need to add a line to /etc/fstab of the format:

Code: Select all

UUID=4F8FF55A05DA9208	/home/andy/shareddata	ntfs	defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000,nofail	0	2

you get the UUID from the output of blkid. I've shown it mounting in home at shareddata (for ease of access), you can mount it wherever you like, just make sure you create the folder first.

How are you going to backup your data?

[MiZoG]

1. exFAT is the only filesystem all major OSes can read and write into it. I have experienced several problems with extensive use of NTFS partitions from within Linux. Yet I cannot 'testify' about NTFS under the newest native kernel support.
2. I tend to agree with Cosmo about the size of your root and home partitions. I bet he's right about swap too but you do need a large SWAP partition if you're going to use hibernation. Otherwise the default creation of a 2GiG swapfile will suffice.
3. You copy back from the external drive to your new home partition. That simple. It's what I do when I fresh install a new major release. I do use though a limited number of important to me programs. I know well how to restore/merge their configuration files and profiles. If you were on a much older Mint version, you'd like to try 'selective' step by step copying / restoring. Old configurations may not play well with newer versions of some applications. This of course concerns the 'hidden' folders in your home directory not plain files and archives.

[AndyMH]

LM20, not all utilities support exfat, e.g. parted, gparted. Not checked LM21 to see if this has changed.

[smokeymtn_ron]

Thanks everybody for the help. Just for information, here is the way my SSD is set up now. The 'video' will be moved to the storage drive and I only want to use 'primary' partitions. Are /usr, /tmp, /var part of / if they don't have their own partitions?

[AndyMH]

You really don't need separate partitions for /usr, /tmp, /var and /boot. All you are doing is storing up potential problems for the future, leave them in /. Just because the installer gives you options to have them, doesn't mean you have to use them.

[smokeymtn_ron]

You really don't need separate partitions for /usr, /tmp, /var and /boot. All you are doing is storing up potential problems for the future, leave them in /. Just because the installer gives you options to have them, doesn't mean you have to use them.

Thanks. Yea, I don't want to use them on the fresh install.

[billyswong]

Even /home don't need a separate partition. Why not just follow the default configuration? I don't see any valid point of separating folders in Linux into separate partitions *within the same SSD*. SSD wear-leveling don't care the partitioning one put above. In physical layer they are still mixed together.

[Cosmo.]

...

This is principally questionable. But in this case the OP wants to use a separate 1 TB drive for his/her data, so creating a separate /home is is a valid point.

[billyswong]

...

This is principally questionable. But in this case the OP wants to use a separate 1 TB drive for his/her data, so creating a separate /home is is a valid point.

OP is not putting /home in the separate 1TB HDD. OP is setting "/", "/boot", "/home" etc into /dev/sda[1-9], which is obviously the same physical device.

[Cosmo.]

Not really difficult to find an read:

1TB HDD
Would like to set this up as a storage drive. Pictures, videos, downloads, etc.

[smokeymtn_ron]

Thanks to everyone for their help . New computer is up and running great. I've got one small thing (can't really call it a problem) that I can't figure out. During boot I get error messages before the the login screen. It still boots fast and normal, but is there any way to not show these messages? They only last a couple seconds, so no real problem. Attached is a picture I took of one of the 2 error screens. Had to take it with my phone so I apologize for the clarity.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/057I0nB ... 7qDaMShuVg

IMG_0006.png (177.41 KiB) Viewed 400 times

[deepakdeshp]

Error messages can safely ignored.

[deepakdeshp]

To hide the errors you have to change log level
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... GR8Rhv9yrC