Installing Manjaro on SSD and programs on HDD

[Elemeo]

Hello, im looking to start my linux journey with Manjaro (with KDE 21) as i’ve heard really good things.
I own an HP laptop with a Ryzen 7 and an intergrated Radeon Vega 10 GPU. Also its UEFI. The laptop has one SSD and one HDD and currently has Windows 10 on it.

I need some help formatting and partitioning so that Manjaro is installed on SSD and anything else on HDD (I know the linux filesystem is nothing like Windows but I hope you get the idea). I just wanna conserve as much SSD space as possible and use mainly the HDD.

I have no idea how i should format and partition the disks and im afraid of messing something up so any help is appreciated.

(Just to be clear, im not looking to dual boot, I want only Manjaro on my laptop, i just need help figuring out how to tackle the 2 disks issue)

Thanks in advance.

[freggel.doe]

Try the search next time

Install manjaro on ssd and keep data on hdd

Welcome to the forum! Well, I am not going to give you any direct advice on doing what you say you want to do, because GNU/Linux does not work the same way Windows does. Windows maintains a volume-oriented approach to storage, with different drive letters, and everyone basically has write access to everything except for the C:\WINDOWS directory. GNU/Linux on the other hand is a UNIX system, and UNIX does not use drive letters, nor does it allow everyone to write to everything. …

[Elemeo]

Well that kinda explains some things however it doesnt really help with what im asking here. I need help with formatting and partitioning my SSD and HDD so that I achieve what is described in the post you linked.

[megavolt]

Hello @Elemeo

@Elemeo

anything else on HDD

What do you have in mind when thinking of “anything else” ?

@Elemeo

I just wanna conserve as much SSD space as possible and use mainly the HDD.

In general all system files and applications installed by the package manager should be on the SSD to speed up the time to run, but in general 2 things could be placed on the HDD:

1. /home → all user files
2. backups in general

[Elemeo]

I mean programs like IDEs, browsers, Spotify, programming enviroments etc.

[megavolt]

Well here is the unix hierachy explained:

The Linux Directory Structure, Explained

@Elemeo

IDEs, browsers, Spotify, programming enviroments

These are installed at /opt or /usr.

In general you have to create partition on the HDD and mount it to /opt or /var. This way the content is on the HDD, but displayed like it would be on the SSD. That should be done at the installation.

For /tmp there should be used tmpfs which is a ram disk.

@Elemeo

I have no idea how i should format and partition the disks and im afraid of messing something up so any help is appreciated.

In general it is not that hard. I would suggest to use ext4 as filesystem which is de facto the default. On Gparted or Kparted you can easy partitioning your disk as you need. But keep in mind: shrinking and moving partitions takes a lot of time. Expanding works on the fly.