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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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One single partition for Linux versus using a partition table? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Heya folks, some people online told me I was doing partitions wrong, but I’ve been doing it this way for years. Since I’ve been doing it for years, I could be doing it in an outdated way, so I thought I should ask.

I have separate partitions for EFI, /, swap, and /home. Am I doing it wrong? Here’s how my partition table looks like:

FAT32: EFI
BTRFS: /
Swap: Swap
Ext4: /home

I set it up this way so that if I need to reinstall Linux, I can just overwrite / while preserving /home and just keep working after a new install with very few hiccups. Someone told me there’s no reason to use multiple partitions, but several times I have needed to reinstall the OS (Linux Mint) while preserving /home so this advice makes zero sense for me. But maybe it was just explained to me wrong and I really am doing it in an outdated way. I’d like to read what you say about this though.

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[–] Quazatron 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Once you learn about LVM, you'll never use a naked partition again. Or your money back.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for your consultation about lvm.

I'll take a look.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Last time i used LVM was way back in fedora 8 days, when it was the default partition. It was super annoying to use, as gparted didnt support it, and live cds often had trouble with it. Having to read doco to resize it was pretty not good for a newbie to linux. Has it improved since?

[–] Quazatron 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

LVM does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you're over it, you realise how dumb it is to keep partitioning disks like it's 1995.

Most if not all graphical disk managers now work with LVM.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thats good to know, thank you for that info, I might look into it next time i have to reinstall.