I will try and make this short. I am running a Windows 7 system with a 250GB Samsung EVO SSD as my boot drive. I have moved the Windows operating system to a 500 GB hard drive that I have just for safeties sake. I want to install Linux Mint on the SSD and have it my boot drive. My question is will I have any difficulties when I reformat the SSD and install Linux? The Magician software that I use for optimization of the SSD is for Windows only, what is needed to manage the SSD?
For the the last couple of years TRIM and garbage collection have been built into and turned on by default in the Linux kernel. All the major file systems support SSD storage.
I would make a live disc of GParted first use that to wipe the old drive then install Mint.
I agree, this is a great guide. It contains the same things the Samsung Magician does. Here's a quick recap of the guide for home use (not server use):
set over provisioning
noatime
set trim by rc.local, because "in most cases "cron" is not the optimal method for TRIM anyway"
disable the (now superfluous) weekly cron job
limit swappiness to 1
limit firefox cache to 0 (not so easy if you are a chrome/chromium user)
disable hibernation
+it contains a lof of best pratices
I understand why every one of these is important, except why CRON is not the most optimal method of doing TRIM. Anyone have any input?
My guess about the Cron job approach is the best way on a machine that is on 24/7, like a server. For a regular computer that gets turned on and off several times, it might be some time before the computer just so happens to be on at the time the Cron job is scheduled.
At least in the article he discusses three methods and where each might be appropriate. Giving us the option of what course of action to take.
He does have his own personal point of view, I don't agree with everything he says. As a reader of the site you can pick and chose what you need from his site.
About the cron job - yes it seems logical. About his personal opinion - I remember doing the "10 things to do after installing mint 17.2", which included uninstalling Mono, which not only broke bashee and notepad tomboy (like he does write it will), but also other software I had installed later on. So not a huge fan of uninstalling default software on a bundled and easy to use, never breaks install like mint.
First off thank you everyone for the suggestions and comments!
I repartitioned the SSD and have installed Linux Mint on it and that is working fine. I went to the website: https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd and followed the instructions carefully. After two separate segments where completes (TRIM installed) I was asked to reboot which I did, however my system hung up. I manually rebooted the system and after a short period of time Linux tried to boot but had an issue and I was asked if I wanted to abort the mounting procedure. I did this and Linux came to life. I went back to the instructions given and removed all of the changes that I had made then saved each of the files and rebooted again and this time Linux booted correctly! Foe those of you who are into the command line this is easy but to old guys like me it is a challenge.
I don't know if the guide can be wrong in certain instances, but if you think it's because you did something wrong we're more than willing to help you!
EDIT: Last night I stumbled upon switching to the best I/O scheduler depending on which kind of drive(s) you have. @Quixotic_Autocrat@PendragonUKHave any of you looked into this before? Have any input? Here is what I did. (BTW: had to put it all in as code, otherwise the formatting on this forum made some text extremely large and some extremely small)
This test shows that there is a performance difference between the schedulers http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_316_iosched&num=1
Do the full test yourself with the Phoronix test suite http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=downloads
Here is the guide.
# Check which scheduler you currently have assigned to your drives, exchange X with the drive you want to test. I have both an SDD and a HDD in my system, so I would test both sda & sdb. The option inside [these brackets] is the one handling the I/O to said drive.
$ cat /sys/block/sdX/queue/scheduler
# Optional: Benchmark your drive, exchange X with the drive you want to benchmark.
$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdX
# Let the computer choose CFQ for HDD's and Deadline for SSD's. First make this file.
$ sudo touch /etc/udev/rules.d/60-schedulers.rules
# And edit it using nano, you may choose leafpad or whichever you feel most at home with.
$ sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/60-schedulers.rules
# Copy/paste the following in the file.
# set deadline scheduler for non-rotating disks
ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]", ATTR{queue/rotational}=="0", ATTR{queue/scheduler}="deadline"
# set cfq scheduler for rotating disks
ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]", ATTR{queue/rotational}=="1", ATTR{queue/scheduler}="cfq"
# If you used nano press Ctrl+O Enter Ctrl+X to save and exit nano.
# Check again to see if it has changed. Can't remember if you should reboot first. Exchange X with the drive you want to look at.
$ cat /sys/block/sdX/queue/scheduler
# Optional: Benchmark your drive. Exchange X with the drive you want to benchmark.
$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdX
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-best-practices-for-using-SSDs-with-Linux
OK, I am back again. I found a U Tube video that I managed to stay up with, especially the command line usage. The speaker went slowly and explained very well why things where being done. I followed along however had a few bumps along the way but I believe that I have things modified correctly.
Depending on the distro they may already have TRIM enabled along with other optimizations. Always check what is already set up first so you don't duplicate effort or make things worse.
I was so happy to have Trim support enable automatically that I wanted to let everyone know that this was completed. I unfortunately did not reboot my system, when I did a reboot all heck broke out with tons of error messages etc. and no way to by pass the loader. As a result Linux Mint will not boot, If I could get into Linux so that I would remove the modifications that I made.
Here is a list of the few command lines I used using gedit. This list will start from the last entry and then move backwards.
3 Edit of Swap Files for a SSD: Sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf (added at the bottom of the file) vm.swappiness = 0
2 For trimming Automatically of Directories and Files that are deleted : Sudo gedit /etc/fstab Looked for the ext4 file then add) discard,noname,errors (prior to =remount-ro 0
1 Automatic Trim: sudo gedit /etc/rc.local (At the bottom of the page above exit 0 type in ) fstrim /
That is the changes that I made and as a result Linux Mint 17.3 will now not boot.
Does any one know how to buy pass the boot loader to get into Linux so I can reverse the code that was added.
If I have to reinstall Mint from scratch I will have to think about the value of moving away from Windows Grrrrrrrrrrr.
1) I once accidentally wrote fstab / at the end of the rc.local file, without any effect, so I don't think that it is so picky, but better have a look at it and see if there is a typo somewhere.
2) It should not be noname, it should be noatime . If you have a separate partition with vFat for your /boot/efi (if the partition table is GPT and not MBR), you should not add discard to that partition.
3) On any other guide I've seen, they say it should be set to 1. I don't know, maybe it's not that important.
I think 2) is the most serious here! Even if noname was just a typo, fstab is where there is the most potential to screw up. Boot up from a usb stick with mint. Go to "Computer" on the desktop, select the SSD and navigate to fstab and open it with notepad. You do not need sudo permissions to edit this file if you do it from essentially another operating system on the USB.