So this not really a support thread but just a Discussions what is the recommended way to install Manjaro and if you can give me some tips for NVME too keep them healthy for a long time that would be great
Maybe some Remember my Steam Post and yeah I am about to finally reinstall my system(install from 2019) in the coming days just in time with the new release of Manjaro.
As I was testing the new ISO I noticed out of the box there are tools for Btrfs and managing snapshots for that besides Timeshift that works with every files system as I understand.
Is it recommended to Install with Btrfs because of some reason unknown to me?
I am asking that because I am reinstalling to a new gen4 NVME on a Samsung 980PRO 1 TB
and I was thinking about switching from the old stable Ext4 Files system that I used for more 10 yeas to something else newer maybe better suited for flash and NVME.
Also bought a new 2 TB Patriot P210 sata drive and I will format it to F2fs but just for my Steam Games.
But are here some people who use F2fs as their Root/Boot Partion and what are your experiences?
and last thing maybe I can reuse my old Root drive my Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB as a cache drive or /temp but with a fallback to my NVME drive so can keep some writes of my NVME as long as this old Drive is still usable?
Sorry for the long thread maybe this helps someone in the future too
I’d go for a default install rather than custom, but do remember to include at least some swap. I’m seeing a lot of systems with no swap and it will, at some point, come back to bite.
For NVME I can’t really help, sorry, but I’d recommend sticking with ext4, for similar reasons (being relatively new, less people know about it at present).
BTFS is, in my opinion at least a very advanced and involved filesystem. I’d not recommend it if you’re not able or willing to put time into maintaining it. Myself, I even only use ext4. The Manjaro Wiki has good documentation 'bout it:
I’ve not changed anything on my NVMe disk and it’s only used:
I don’t have a swap and it’s because the default install doesn’t suggest it. It’s been a couple of years now and haven’t had any issues related to it. Maybe I’m just lucky?
well it seems I have forgotten that in 2019 I did forget to make a swap partition at that time on my Desktop Pc
looking now at fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=D6CA-1692 /boot/efi vfat noatime 0 2
UUID=c13a924e-f23f-443d-93b3-0384a2541f36 / ext4 noatime,discard 0 1
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs noatime,mode=1777 0 0
/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0
#UUID=410c13a5-f1cd-4811-80ba-1592de5069fa /run/media/dean/Data-Disk1 ext4 users 0 0
#UUID=84da62d9-01fd-4971-90d6-4602976ac9da /run/media/dean/NVME-Data2 ext4 users 0 0
#UUID=cd4fd70b-4e24-46ac-8092-8f44409ed6d1 /run/media/dean/Data ext4 users 0 0
#UUID=9bd1d750-888e-41c9-a5a3-8a323f1a8e8c /run/media/dean/Game-data ext4 users 0 0
#UUID=cd4fd70b-4e24-46ac-8092-8f44409ed6d1 /run/media/dean/Data\040\040 ext4 discard,nofail,users 0 0
UUID=9bd1d750-888e-41c9-a5a3-8a323f1a8e8c /run/media/dean/Game-data ext4 discard,defaults,nofail,users 0 0
UUID=410c13a5-f1cd-4811-80ba-1592de5069fa /run/media/dean/Data-Disk1 ext4 nofail,users 0 0
UUID=84da62d9-01fd-4971-90d6-4602976ac9da /run/media/dean/NVME-Data2\040 ext4 discard,nofail,users 0 0
so some time after the installation I made a swap file and that worked very well and I could even keep a swap file on a different Drive just in case to not waste space on my NVME and I have 32 GB of Ram probably the swap file was not used at all for years I think
Edit. I was 1,5 years without a swap partition and that time I only had 16 GB Ram zero Problems or at least not related to swam or ram
and yeah I know Ext4 is stable and Recommended but Still if I have backups of my important files somewhere else what could happen?
I have a second Nobara Installation on one Old Samsung 970 EVO but used it only once for Gaming and troubleshooting problems with Steam on Manjaro with Btrfs I could test sme things there and see and read a bit about it
Maybe I am bit paranoid about the live span of flash storage but it is better to be safe than sorry later who knows what can happen
Just try it with an swap file that worked for for nearly 6 years but I also have 32 Gb of RAM
Sorry English is not my Native Language as may see and I am honestly trying to write correct.
Yeah and that is my Problem with F2fs it is on a lot of Phones but I do not see Data of a lot of People using it on Desktop/Laptops setups so I thought to ask about other peoples opinions.
The most important tip for NVMe storage on any OS, any file system type; keep your file system TRIM’ed. This technology relies on it, it’s the only way to effectively write new data.
You do not cause wear by doing this, and it only increases performance (after it completes). Manjaro does this once a week by default (the Win 10/11 default is the same).
So make sure you have an fstrim timer running. If you installed Manjaro some time ago, it might not even be enabled.
This is not meant for NVMe storage. This is for things like micro SD cards, and some other non-standard use cases.
To use btrfs like ext4 requires very minimal knowledge, I would highly recommend it. I didn’t know it two years ago, and now I can snapshot anything and send them anywhere. It has also saved me reinstalling on several occasions.
I think Timeshift is great for a first time person jumping into snapshots. But I would recommend some light reading before this. At least some basic general knowledge about CoW file systems and what snapshots actually do, especially when you are doing lots of stuff in the middle of them.
I thought it was enough to have the discard option in fstab to trim it on every boot, was I wrong?
No if you look at the Arch wiki it says for NAND-based flash memory equipped with Flash Translation Layer
But not really a good Idea for a Root/Boot partitions
If we would have an easy way to choose in the Calamares Installer between Ext4 or Btrfs I would try it but for now it is safer to stay with Ext4
I found it just strange to include Btrfs tools in the ISO when the recommended Files System for Install is Ext4 and it is not even easy to install I had a look at a Tutorial in the Manjaro Forum
Youd be right that discard is an alternative option and ‘enough’.
Youd be wrong that it runs at login - discard is continual.
And you might be wrong if you thought it was the preferred or recommended method.
discard can cause hangups or worse depending on the hardware.
