I’m kinda new to Linux and I would like your help to not mess up and have a smooth run, as much as possible. I’ve been looking for a distro as a daily driver since I’m done using that other SO on my laptop. I checked a few and I decided to go with Endeavour.
I was looking for help with installing EndeavourOS with custom partitions. I already checked a few times to decide on the DE so the SO runs perfectly on my machine, but I wanted to personalise it from the very beginning
I have 2 SSDs that I’d like to use as follows: #1 - EFI, System, Recovery, Backups, Programs and Personal data. #2 - Work data
For the second SSD it’s probably okay to do just one partition, right? I just need to store finished stuff from work like videos, photos, songs, etc.
In the first and primary one, I wanted to have the ESP partition (I’d like to install rEFInd later) and the system ones separated like /root, /home, /var, /tmp, etc. I also wanted 2 more: one for backups of my personal data, and one as a recovery partition. For the Recovery one, I want to make an image of the full set-up of apps, rclone and stuff, so I can return to point 0 anytime I mess up hard without having me to re-install all and set up all again. (not even sure I can do an image of Linux btw)
I know it might be too much for a new user, and you might want to show me simpler ways, but please bear with me!
I would read about the BTRFS file system and setup with that if your wanting system back in time backups. Also would make your separate partitions for /var /tmp etc automatic for some of those partitions already.
As far as the other device don’t even worry about it until after you have installed a system. The recovery partition isn’t really needed in Linux like it is in Windows as You can use a Live disk to recover from most Issues. Maybe check out something like System Rescue and if your not familiar with Ventoy I would learn how to use that as it’s a great way to have several bootable ISO’s on one device.
Learn to keep a package list. This makes reinstalls much faster and easier.
for Arch/Endeavour pacman -Qne This command will give you packages you have installed from Official Arch Sources. pacman -Qm This will give you packages you installed from unofficial sources like the AUR.
only addressing #2–
you just want to treat this SSD like an external storage drive?
no operating system or programs?
if true, just format it FAT32 (for cross-platform flexibility) or GPT/EXT4 (if your life is 100% Linux).
Heck, if its big enough you could save your backups there..
the only thing I would say about #1 is 1) everything @thefrog said plus just use the live installer and delegate the whole install to Endeavour i.e. let the installer want to do what it wants to do.**** you can modify from there
****this is the caveat: my advice is for only if Endeavour is living on SSD #1.
good luck. if you are new to linux you have to overthink and ask questions.
a couple years later you don’t need to overthink it too much.
I am not sure why you want to do this, but you should not. On an Arch-based distro, you should never give /var it’s own partition. There is no good reason to separate /root either.
/tmp is mounted on a tmpfs so you don’t need to do anything there. That just happens on it own.
Instead of a recovery partition, look into timeshift. Also, you should consider writing it to the other disk in case that disk fails.
Yes, and I wouldn’t consider another drive or partition a backup strategy. If these files are important, they deserve backup storage at least outside the case (ie removable media).
BTRFS is my go to for Linux actually, so yay for me! For the snapshots, is system implemented or is there a nice app for it?
You’re basically saying I shouldn’t worry about system partitions, so I could just go with root and home (and var, tmp etc) into 1?
I’ll have EOS only. How do I set the boot and efi?
For the Recovery I wanted a custom iso to go to when I’m in trouble and using it as a Live media too. Is that possible?
The ssd1 will look like this?
/efi 2GB ish? Do I need a /boot too?
SWAP = I have 64GB of RAM so can I do it on file? or avoid it completely?
/recovery = 10GB?
/EOS = remaining space
ss2
/backup 500GB ish
/storage 1.5TB ish
-btw, I LOVE Ventoy. Ventoy is life and saves space and time!-
I need to tweak the EOS installer then? Where do I learn to do that?
EDIT:
I’ll use Proton Drive as the main source. The locale will be used only to mirror the cloud.
If you are going to dedicate the whole of the disk to EOS, just boot up your live USB in UEFI mode and choose erase disk option and Btrfs. The installer will set up the ESP and all the necessary Btrfs subvolumes for you. The default bootloader is systemd-boot but you can choose Grub instead if that is your game.
A praiseworthy goal. In that case my suggestion would be to setup a virtual machine and install Archlinux according to the prescriptions in Archwiki.
You can make and break to your heart content and then when you have a good grips of what is essential for a base operating system to work, how to configure different part of it and so on and so forth, then move on to installing EOS and let it setting up everything for you with almost next to zero user intervention than choosing some options in the installer.
You can spend a whole month here, discussing different options etc. and everybody would give you what they believe is the best setup and so on but getting first hand experience is the most essential step on your Linux journey.
It really is a GREAT exercise to install arch the old way (don’t use archinstall) and try to understand each step.
And yes @cactux, I purposefully replied to you, to associate my comment with yours yay me
nah you don’t tweak the installer. I am controlling of my installs (I choose and create the partitions) but sometimes…just sometimes…if a distro is getting whole disk…then I tell it to ‘take the whole disk’ in the installer choices and let it to all the partition-creating.
I am more comfortable creating partitions in gparted from a live disk first. But I create them in the installer too.
You want to learn?
Learn how to create partitions from the installer.
If you are new to Linux, be prepared (and even relish) to fail. Embrace it. That’s how you learn. And a forum like this.
TLDR–no don’t tweak the installer, I wouldn’t even know how
How much do we learn from things that just work vs failures & problems?
If going the grub/btrfs/timeshift route instead of recovery partition then these may be of help to you (thanks to joekamprad):
BTRFS with timeshift + automatic (periodic) snapshots + timeshift-autosnap (pre-package/system auto snapshots) + grub snapshots menu (boot from a snapshot)
How much do we learn from things that just work vs failures & problems? 
EnOS , enjoy the ride (spoiler: it’s pretty great