Messed up new Manjaro xfce installation

So you are saying you kept the /home partition from pop os and just assigned it when installing Manjaro? This is an approach to ask for trouble…

Also I have 2 months old timeshift backup of linux mint cinnamon on my laptop. Should I restore it from within Manjaro xfce

Yes I did the same

To be honest - backup and fully re-install without keep anything from the current install, it’s most likely borked.

Should I backup and remove the home partition too

I have a very slow HDD. It is tough to backup it up. It may take hours. Is there any other solution

Backup only valuable data, personal files - nothing from the system. And yes, then delete all existing partition of the Manjaro system and re-install from the scratch.

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Is there any other solution? I have too much data on the home partition

When you try a workaround you will most likely end up with a system where you have spend much more time to fix all the little deficiencies you are producing by this. Make a clear cut now, spend the time and enjoy to use the computer afterwards and avoid wasting time for endless fixes.

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Okay thanks for your help. I am copying my files to other partition

The problem with the /home partition is that it’s holding lots of user specific setting files. That’s the reason I keep my personal files on a separate data partition. This partition you can easily boot into a folder of /home/$USER and then you could keep the data partition whenever you switch the OS.

So I would recommend to only use Partitions mounted as

/boot/efi
/
/home/$USER/data

(Replace $USER with your real user name)

So, you could create a new system and keep your old /home partition as pure data partition but then at least I would delete all the hidden settings folders.

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I didn’t get it what you did. Please can you explain it a bit

You can keep your existing /home partition, let’s say its /dev/sda3. Don’t assign it as /home during installation but mount it under a sub-folder, e.g. when your user name is nikhil, then mount it via fstab as

/home/nikhil/data

You need to get it owned by your user afterwards as well. Then after installation delete all hidden sub-folders in /home/nikhil/data as they contain the original settings of pos os you definitely don’t want to keep.

I have around 85 gb if data on it. With an avg speed of copying 18 MB/s it will take more than an hour. Is there any other way you know I could fix it. Copy pasting will be quite a hassle for me. Last time I messed it up, copying from skel fixed it. Is there any other workaround. If not I won’t mind but I want to give it a try

I just gave you an alternative, just read my last post.

Yeah I did read it. I would do that when I will have free time left coz it requires me to reinstall it again. Is there any other fix. Fine if no other fix is there but if yes, I’m ready to try it for the last time

Hey @Wollie is there any guide to do what you mentioned. I’m qute new to fstab and all. I’m backing my home and wanted to reinstall.

Did you reopen your session right afterwards?

It’s really not difficult to find it:

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Fstab