I’ve been using Windows on my main PC for years now, purely due to compatibility with existing programs. Despite this, I’m plenty familiar with Linux as I’ve been using it on servers for a while.
I’m finally at a point where I feel like the switch would be worth the trouble, but the one last major thing holding me back is my existing storage and filesystem.
I have ~14 TB of data in NTFS (all backed up of course, but I’d really rather not pull down 14 TB of data if it can be avoided) and if I’m going to make the switch, I’d like to switch it to a proper Linux-friendly fs.
My two main points of concern here are as follows:
Since I doubt there’s one answer for all circumstances, which fs would best fit my use-case? I’m not talking NAS pooled storage here, just my PC with two 6 TB drives and a few smaller ones that I’ve gotten over the years. I’ve looked into zfs, btrfs, and I’m familiar with ext4, but I’m not sure what would best suit my needs. In case it matters, I’m seriously considering Gentoo as my distro of choice, and my usage is a mix of programming, photo/video editing, gaming, and some light data hoarding/archival.
Is there anything I can do to make the process of converting everything to a different fs less painful? I don’t have a spare 6+ TB drive to copy everything to before formatting, and my backups are in the cloud.
Apologies if my post is incorrectly formatted or in the wrong category - this is my first post on the forum.
It may surprise you, but Linux can use NTFS just fine for accessing data. So in case of doubt, just keep using NTFS. Just not for the OS itself, you really need to put a decent fs under that Ext4 is fine, as are JFS and XFS, it’s really a matter of personal preference. Mine is JFS although for a while I used XFS for the various Linux distro’s I’ve used.
Gentoo is a solid choice, although it’s a little more outdated then one might like. Funtoo (Gentoo spin-off) has more ‘bleeding edge’ software, but in either case, compiling takes time and by default, leaves you hanging if it fails. Portage isn’t very good in conflict-resolving unless you’re intimately familiar with its workings as to pre-emptively make choices to catch failures.
A better choice (for Linux novices) is anything based on apt, i.e. Debian. It has superior package management/conflict-resolving but unfortunately comes with systemd. As I detest that, I chose Devuan, which essentially is Debian with everything systemd ripped out. For those who don’t share my dislike for systemd, Debian, Mint and Ubuntu are fine choices to get you started in Linux.
In any case, switching the fs on a disk means wiping all data. You may get around it if there’s a sufficient space to store data while converting parts of the disk in succession. (i.e. you convert 1 TB of free spae, then move 1TB worth of data over, convert the now copied 1TB, then copy a new 1TB block, etc. Cumbersome, but at least theoretically doable. Gparted is your tool of choice here)
For a desktop system btrfs offers more flexibility.
A good GPT layout for your 6T drives would be to have a 512MB bootloader partition for whatever, e.g. a 4GB /boot partition, and put the rest into luks encrypted volume. Inside of it make an LVM2 PV, and build btrfs out of logical volumes so you can benefit from its multi device redundancy if you choose to use it, or you can benefit from ssd caching that LVM can provide.
All of this is shrinkable/growable raid reconfigurable on the fly without forcing you to unmount or log out and stop using your computer - other than to physically attach/detach drives.
Just speaking from personal experience here but I have never had a good time with anything apt-based. I tried Ubuntu, Mint, Kubuntu some time ago and it was just messing up in the weirdest ways (one time it installed a system upgrade to the wrong drive… how’s that even happen?). Hanging around in various discords I also constantly see issues with packages not being installed properly, conflicting packages somehow being installed at the same time and more of the like… I don’t know, maybe it’s the users doing weird stuff, but maybe the package manager shouldn’t allow weird stuff in the first place.
Anyway, getting off track here.
Been using Fedora for the last 2.5 years and never had any package-related issues so far. There were some weird things with sound here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be resolved (except for one minor issue I’m too lazy to look into).
Fedora 34 ships with btrfs by default now, as for data drives you can use pretty much anything you like. To start out, just mount the NTFS drives as they are and transition over time, that way you can figure out what you need as you go.
*buntu was your problem. Try Debian and other Debian-based systems if you want to experience the APT world. Ubuntu is okay for beginners but then you start noticing how Canonical tries to Apple-ify their distro.
Maybe some day, but I currently have no interest in it whatsoever, since I need more up to date packages and I don’t wanna fiddle with custom repos and whatnot. I kinda suspected it was Ubuntu tho, it was one that was mentioned as well though
Assuming your boot drive is separate from storage I would just go with the default for whatever distro you pick. Generally its going to be EXT4 which is fine.
As for storage, you can keep it NTFS for now, but I would invest in getting a 3rd 6tb drive (or just upgrading the whole thing to 3x new drives) and doing ZFS RAIDz to add some data redundancy, then use your old 6tb drives as a backup array in a different box and if possible at a different site.
Now when it comes to distro’s and desktop environments, this is very much up to you. I personally really like KDE Plasma, but I was a GNOME user for years. I strongly dislike Ubuntu’s Unity.
When people are talking about Distro’s what they are really talking about is a package manager. The way the OS updates and installs software is generally dependent on what the distribution maintainers have selected. Apt(tus) which is the dominant manager is fantastic and has lots of documentation because Debian has been around forever and Ubuntu is based on Debian so it has a massive user base. That said I personally prefer Arch based distro’s as they are bleeding edge and I find Pacmac more than enough for dealing with most things as it can install both from the Manjaro repos and the Arch repos as AUR.
I find that KDE + Manjaro is a very good platform and my kids even use it and find it simple enough.
Pretty much any filesystem will play nice with Linux because Linux doesn’t care.
That said, it’s best to use something that fits your needs.
For the root filesystem, on a server, just stick with EXT4. Since you’re new it will be easier for you to manage Then you can do as others suggested and mount the NTFS volume somewhere and not have to do any conversion.
But lets be clear; if you care about your data then you really need to tend to it periodically for checks of corruption.
I’ve used NTFS with Linux in the past, but I remember the experience being full of permissions issues etc. and really didn’t want to deal with that again. That’s why I originally wanted to switch everything over, but I think for now I might just change over my boot drive and keep it to that until I have room to make the conversion more easily.
I’m most familiar with Debian-based systems - my servers run Ubuntu and one runs Raspbian, mostly due to convenience - but I wanted to go with a more custom experience. I don’t mind the compilation time, figuring things out myself, and doing the research for something like Gentoo, though I might go with Funtoo instead of straight Gentoo. Still need to do some more research before I decide.
Are there any potential downsides to this, aside from time? Would the resulting partition be ‘messier’ than one created by simply wiping and reformatting the disk fresh?
I think what I’ll do then is just leave the storage volumes as NTFS until I can convert them cleanly (reformat completely and repopulate with data after).
You will probably have to chown the drive content after hooking it up the first time, from then on it should be fine.
That being said, that should only be used for data storage (like you said is your usecase), you wouldn’t really wanna put anything else on there. Even games when you run them through wine or Proton could give you serious headaches on an NTFS drive, so just… don’t.
Ext4 is fine, as are JFS and XFS, it’s really a matter of personal preference. Mine is JFS although for a while I used XFS for the various Linux distro’s I’ve used.