Any advice for a long-time Linux user, first-time Linux desktop user?
Any advice for a long-time Linux user, first-time Linux desktop user?
I'm a regular user of Linux systems but apart from a couple of test Ubuntu installs many years ago they've always been containers or VMs with no DE which I can throw away when I break them. The Steam Deck showcasing how far Wine/Proton has come combined with Windows being Windows has given me the push; I've made a Mint live USB and it's running beautifully on my desktop. I come to you, the masters, with questions before I hit install:
- What do you recommend I do about disk partitions? I'm keeping a Windows install for the few things that demand it, does Windows still occasionally destroy Linux partitions? Do I need separate partitions for data and OS? Is it straightforward to add additional distros as new partitions or is that asking for trouble?
- Is disk encryption straightforward? And is that likely to upset the Windows partition?
- Is cloud storage sync straightforward? It's my off-site backup solution on Android and Windows (using Cryptomator with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) but I don't think that many providers have Linux clients. Is something like rclone recommended?
- Should I just use apt to install software? I know there's some kind of graphical package manager (synaptic?), does that use apt under the covers or is it separate? Is it recommended to install something like Flathub too?
- Any other pearls of wisdom? How do I keep everything tidy? Any warnings about what not to do? Should I use a particular terminal emulator or Firefox fork?
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Use a separate bootloader partition for every OS. Windows is known for destroying non-windows bootloaders. It rarely, if ever, touches anything else. Many distros have a /boot partition with initramfs since grub might not support booting from the root partition's filesystem. Integrity is ensured with secure boot, /boot encryption is optional.
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LUKS is straightforward, and most non-DIY distros have encrypted root support built-in.
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Gnome has Google drive support in the file manager itself, although it's not exposed to CLI yet.
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If you're not short on storage, I personally highly recommend Flatpaks as they are containerised whilst also come with a sandbox solution. Avoid non-default frontends when using system packages.
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Check out immutable/image-based distros like Fedora Silverblue. They are proved to be extremely reliable and need little to no manual maintenance since all changes are atomic and generate a brand new OS.
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Avoid Nvidia GPUs. Their proprietary drivers are compatibility nightmares.
Cheers!
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