Noob Question Thread: Ask Any Questions About Linux!

Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlmod to Linux@lemmy.ml – 314 points –

I thought I'll make this thread for all of you out there who have questions but are afraid to ask them. This is your chance!

I'll try my best to answer any questions here, but I hope others in the community will contribute too!

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I am still blowing up my install pretty often.

Other than the user folder, what else should I back up for a fast and painless reinstall next time I get too adventurous?
What should I break next?
Dose Nvidia hate me?
How do I stop Windows from fucking up my BIOS boot order every time?

Timeshift will save you soooooo much pain. Set it up to auto backup a daily image. You can also manually create as many snapshots as you want.

Timeshift has turned system-destroying mistakes I've made into mere 5-10 minute inconveniences. You can use it in the command line, so even if you blow up your whole desktop environment/window manager, you can still restore back to a known gold state.

I create a snapshot before any major updates or customizations.

Had no idea it existed, let alone already built in. Got my first backup squared away with almost 0 effort.

you can't stop windows from fucking up the bios. part of what makes a windows update "better" for everyone else is it fucking up the bios for you.

you can make a bootable usb that you're comfortable using and get familiar with pivoting root to your installed unbootable system and using it's grub repair tools.

i haven't worked with a linux system that didn't include an automated utility that allowed you to straighten grub out with one command as long as you can get to its environment in like 16 years...

Timeshift, make sure to "include hidden files" to recover any configuration for desktop environments

After a few mess ups, you may find yourself not needing to backup everything, only the file(s) that messed up, and that's still a good thing to have Timeshift for

Depending on your skill level/experience/will to suffer:

  • Do every modification via the command line interface and keep notes
  • Create an Ansible configuration for your setup and you have
    • Instant perfect setup for your next installation
    • Ability to replicated your current setup exactly in a virtual machine, tweak it to your liking in the machine via Ansible and replicate your config back on the metal

Launching windows from the bootloader instead of the grub menu should help stop the issue with windows.

Both OS are on different drives so the boot loaders don't see eachother. I don't trust Window not to fuck up my entire drive. I got to select the drive from my BIOS every time. I may just pull the SATA cable unless my ass hat friends want to play league.