I am about to try switching to Linux, and will start with a dual boot so I can still use Windows if necessary. I'm planning to buy a new M2 SSD for Linux.

But, I currently have 4 hard drives which are all formatted as NTFS for Windows. What considerations do I need to make regarding these existing drives, or for moving files between systems?

For instance, I assume Windows simply won't be able to see any of the files on my Linux drive. What about the other way around? Are there any downsides to accessing my files on NTFS drives through Linux? Am I able to move files around between my drives?

Do I need to convert any of my NTFS drives to a different format? (Or is that even possible without wiping the data?)

I'm using CachyOS (Arch) with BTRFS. And tried to restore snap of root subvolume and it didn't work ( see previous post ).

If I remember correctly, i successfully restored root subvolume before. Take it with a grain of salt.

Some people on my previos posts said that I shouldn't have tried restore root subvol while system is actively running through the subvol.

Now my question is,

How to restore a snap of root subvolume ?

Edit: I know how to restore a snapshot. Just need help with root subvol snapshot.

I use BTRFS Assistant with snapper. And rEFInd doens't have boot to snapshot option. (I installed and it didn't work )

caveat; i've used linux in the best from debian to fedora to ubuntu to redhat on servers but this is the first time i want to actually switch to using it on my laptop because win11 is increasingly bad but also because i love it.

i'm just lost as to where to start. i'm currently looking at laptopwithlinux.com, system76.com, and thinkbooks. a lot of them come with specific distros, though i'm much more partial to debian than ubuntu. is it generally able to switch between a different one without too much hassle?

i also have an hp envy; https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/5818425?baseline=5818425 is it wise to get rid of windows and just install linux on it?

i know some hardware but i'm not an EXPERT (with drivers and such)

any thoughts? hopefully this is an alright community for this question; it was the closest community when searching that i could find that seemed like it fit.

Context: I updated my CachyOS (Arch) BTRFS system. Some new things caused few problems especially brave browser(missing tabs), some icons missing.

So I wanted to go back to previous snapshot.

What I did: I first restored my home subvol which I saved before update. I worked.

Then I tried to restored my root partition. This is where I got the problem.

I got this error.

I would really appreciate URGENT help

If you need any more details I can provide.

EDIT

1. I used BTRFS Assistant to restore the root partition. And I did it while the OS is running.

( I previously did that and got no issues )

2. I pressed crtl+d and got 👇🏽

3. I typed my password and went into maintenance. Typed journalctl -xb and got 2667 lines 😵‍💫. While scrolling mindlessly, this looked like something 👇🏽

👉🏽

👉🏽

4. This is my refind_linux.conf 👇🏽

"Boot with standard options"    "quiet zswap.enabled=0 nowatchdog splash rw rootflags=subvol=/@ cryptdevice=UUID=60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7:luks-60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7 root=/dev/mapper/luks-60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7"

"Boot to single-user mode"    "quiet zswap.enabled=0 nowatchdog splash rw rootflags=subvol=/@ cryptdevice=UUID=60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7:luks-60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7 root=/dev/mapper/luks-60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7" single

"Boot with minimal options"   "ro root=/dev/mapper/luks-60ecb22d-7685-43c2-ae2a-a2ad0c531cc7"

5. This my OS partition 👇🏽

6. This is my subvol layout 👇🏽 (CachyOS default)

I updated arch. After the update mangohud is not showing any GPU stats except GPU model.

I was working perfectly fine before.

Config 👇🏽

################### File Generated by Goverlay ###################
legacy_layout=false


background_alpha=0.6
round_corners=10
background_alpha=0.6
background_color=000000

font_size=24
text_color=FFFFFF
position=top-left
toggle_hud=Shift_R+F12
no_display
pci_dev=0:0000:00
table_columns=4
gpu_text=GPU
gpu_stats
gpu_load_change
gpu_load_value=50,90
gpu_load_color=FFFFFF,FFAA7F,CC0000
gpu_temp
gpu_power
gpu_color=2E9762
cpu_text=CPU
cpu_stats

cpu_load_change
cpu_load_value=50,90
cpu_load_color=FFFFFF,FFAA7F,CC0000
cpu_temp
cpu_power
cpu_color=2E97CB
vram
vram_color=AD64C1
ram
ram_color=C26693
procmem
fps
fps_metrics=avg,0.01
gpu_name
frame_timing
frametime_color=00FF00
fps_limit_method=early
toggle_fps_limit=Shift_L+F1
show_fps_limit

fps_limit=144,90,60,45,30
fps_color_change
fps_color=B22222,FDFD09,39F900
fps_value=30,60
#offset=0







output_folder=/home/user
log_duration=30
autostart_log=0
log_interval=100
toggle_logging=Shift_L+F2

When using the " xfreerdp3 /u:"Your Windows Username" /p:"Your Windows Password" /v:192.168.122.2 /cert:tofu " command I can remote desktop with the viewer. The install fails because it can't do what that command does? Using Libvirt KVM, Cachyos Arch, not sure if i'm better off trying this again with the docker method? Could using the github

I am using CachyOS (Arch btw) and when I tried to update using paru, it says some packages are in conflict, and asking to remove those. What should I do ?

I didn't find the best help from searching by myself ?

❯ paru
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 cachyos-v3 is up to date
 cachyos-core-v3 is up to date
 cachyos-extra-v3                                                                      2.5 MiB   484 KiB/s 00:05 [--------------------------------------------------------------------] 100%
 cachyos is up to date
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 multilib is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
:: wine-cachyos-2:9.0.20250126-2 and wine-mono-9.4.0-1 are in conflict. Remove wine-mono? [y/N] n
error: unresolvable package conflicts detected
error: failed to prepare transaction (conflicting dependencies)
:: wine-cachyos-2:9.0.20250126-2 and wine-mono-9.4.0-1 are in conflict

~ 17s

Trying to install LMDE on a laptop (Windows 10).
Any help is appreciated.

Thank you for your time!

1. Are desktop environments changeable once the OS is installed? Can I switch between Cinnamon and KDE Plasma, for example? Or should I decide on one before I settle for a distro?
2. Coming from Windows, I'm used to my hard drives just being "there", no matter what program I'm using. I need to explicitly set permission levels in order to restrict access, but by default I can access anything anytime. The last time I tried Linux, I couldn't get the program I was using to "see" my hard drives in order to open a file, despite the drives being accessible in the OS file manager. How does this stuff differ between Windows and Linux? What basics should I know about hard drives, e.g. what the hell is "mounting"?
3. What are the crucial differences between the different package managers (e.g. Flathub, Snap, etc.) and why should I choose one over another? And like with the desktop environment question, can I switch app stores at will, or do I need to commit to one before I begin? I've read a lot of very angry and passionate comments in passing related to the various package managers, but none of it was accessible/comprehensible to a n00b like me.
4. Can you recommend a resource - be it a CoolGuide image, video series, a PDF, a website, whatever - that will explain in simple terms the Linux way of doing Windows stuff? (Like with my hard drives question, for example.) "If on Windows you do X, on Linux you'll have to do Y" kinda thing, but for everything, no matter how basic.

Thanks for reading 👍

Title. This error/crash happens with certain web pages only whilst everything else works as intended. Any ideas of what is going on? Running on sway, on a Orange pi 5 max with 16 GiB of ram. Dietpi. Thanks in advance. And yes, Firefox runs just fine without any crashes whatsoever.

I'm having trouble figuring out how I can uncompress these parts into one file. I've tried "zip *.zip > file.zip" with no success.

Will my OS break if I make it the system Read Only? I am installing a raspberry pi 4 (Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit)) in my car and read on Lemmy that if I make the system files Read Only my system won't get corrupt when power is abruptly turned off. I will leave the 'home' directory read-write. I realize I will have to remove the drive and run updates regularly.

Title. I've tried using dd but it doesn't work -- the .img file is written but it does not boot. Thanks in advance.

I haven't updated my Arch (Plasma) for some time.

When I updated it yesterday, suddenly all the exe icons started to show up ( I'm dualbooting with Win ), which is not the case before.

As far I looked up, I can't find anything on internet.

I don't know if it's whether WINE or Dolphin or some other package.

So, what's changed ?

I want to hide the about tag in rEFInd. So, I did according to the info in config and website, which is to add a showtools line with no options.

And, nothing happens. I still see About, Shutdown, Reboot, Firmware tools in the rEFInd screen

# Default is shell,memtest,gdisk,apple_recovery,windows_recovery,mok_tool,about,hidden_tags,shutdown,reboot,firmware,fwupdate
# To completely disable scanning for all tools, provide a showtools line
# with no options.
#
#showtools shell, bootorder, gdisk, memtest, mok_tool, apple_recovery, windows_recovery, about, hidden_tags, reboot, exit, firmware, fwupdate
showtools

Eventhough the previous showtools line is a just a comment, I removed it too. And still nothing happens.

Does anybody have any idea?

I only want Shutdown, Reboot.

SOLVED

It seems like a rEFInd problem in latest version.

https://lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz/comment/16257252

Looks like I have to edit and rebuild it myself. Unfortunately, I'm not really that familiar with building packages myself.

Guess, I have to wait it out.

I installed CachyOS with Plasma DE and found it has no discover in it. When I searched on their sub lots of people say that one shouldn't use Discover with any Arch distro as it will break the system. Can anybody clarify why?

Also if I am not supposed to use Discover, can anybody suggest an actual GUI application store? Unlike Octopi (which I consider just as a TUI with check boxes and columns)

Edit: I only use Discover for find and install new apps.

For updating, I just use paru.

I'm trying to get a Garmin Ant+ USB dongle working within Fedora Kinoite to work with Golden Cheetah and my cycle trainer.

The Golden Cheetah wiki only has instructions for getting this to work within Ubuntu which I got working on Mint previously. I'm trying to convert over to Kinoite and this is critical.

The wiki says to create a new udev rule. Following the instructions it says to place it in /etc/udev/rules.d which also exists in Kinoite, the problem being it's a read only folder and sudo still doesn't allow me to place a file. How do I override the atomic structure to create a file there? I believe it requires using the rpm-ostree command but I'm unfamiliar.

I've got an image noise reduction app that I simply can't get working under linux, and that I can't find an equivalent tool for under linux.

I've tried VMs and wine and none of them work. My web searches haven't encountered anyone that can make it work either.

So, I'm at the point where I may need to boot in to windows to do my noise reduction. However, I would really love to be able to access my existing linux install via a VM or the like when I do so, so that I can access my daily driver software (which is all linux) whilst I'm in windows.

Is such a thing possible?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/24216224

Problem: new kernels not showing up in boot menu

I can install new kernels, and I see them in /boot/efi/{PARITION_UUID}, but they don't show up in the systemd-boot menu.

Data

Normally, Fedora shows the 3 latest kernels (plus a recovery kernel) in the boot menu. I only see up to 6.11.6 in the systemd-boot menu. On the /boot partition, I see much newer kernel versions (both labeled fc40 and fc41)

➜  ~ sudo ls /boot/efi/808f2c9ae4464f1ab2f0a7d367da1b30 -l
total 20
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Jul  4 19:25 0-rescue
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Nov  8 12:42 6.11.6-200.fc40.x86_64
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Nov 18 17:57 6.11.7-200.fc40.x86_64
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Nov 12 16:47 6.11.7-300.fc41.x86_64
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Nov 20 10:10 6.11.8-300.fc41.x86_64
➜  ~ sudo ls /boot/efi/808f2c9ae4464f1ab2f0a7d367da1b30/6.11.8-300.fc41.x86_64 -l 
total 72484
-rwx------. 1 root root 57917440 Nov 20 10:10 initrd
-rwx------. 1 root root 16304488 Nov 20 10:10 linux

Systemd-boot

I started with other distros on this disk before I settled on Fedora. Since I was happy with systemd-boot and its automatic discovery of boot entries, I chose to use systemd-boot when I installed Fedora. I know that Grub is the default bootloader and manager for Fedora, but I have systemd-boot. It's an option in the installer.

Major OS upgrades and rolling back the rollback

Last weekend I upgraded from Fedora 40 KDE Spin to Fedora 41. On the next Monday morning, screensharing in Edge Browser had stopped working, so I rolled back to a Fedora 40 snapshot with BTRFS Assistant. This turned out to be an issue in the latest Edge version, not in the underlying OS, so I rolled back the rollback and went to the Monday evening snapshot, then upgraded my packages.

Ever since, I'm not seeing new Kernels in the systemd-boot menu. Any idea how I can fix this, short of a fresh install of Fedora 41 KDE?

Title. Non-live streams play as intended however. wat do? Thanks in advance.

Title.

Worst case scenario I've figured out a formidable way to make the "ultimate" ~/Downloads directory, heh.

Thanks in advance.

Title. In other words, to make the system redirect workload to the NPU -first- and then to the CPU when it reaches 100% usage? Like both NPU and CPU were a single, huge CPU instead of being separated?

Thanks in advance.

This is my disk layout:

500 GB Linux - BTRFS

100 GB Windows - NTFS

400 GB Storage - NTFS (shared between linux and windows)

I want to encrypt everything. For Linux I can use luks2 but what I'm supposed to do for Windows ? (No bitlocker please)

Will veracrypt replace refind boot manager?

Note: I am talking about the one that asks password before boot (full encryption)

Is there any way to change the behavior so that when I open a new window in split screen, it will stack directly on top of the current window instead of beside it?

I'm on pop os

I installed lots of OSs on my PC. The mistake I did was not backing up my EFI partition beforehand.

Now I deleted all the OS except CachyOS (Arch) and Windows.

Now I want to tidy up my EFI partition. I want to delete everything (even rEFInd) except Windows and Default ones like OEM. (I am gonna reinstall CachyOS ) Can anybody please assist me?

I already deleted the obvious ones like ubuntu and fedora. Anything else?

I know this is not necessarily a linux question but anyways 😅

Solved

Before proceeding with any of the following, I STRONGLY suggest you to make a full backup of your ESP (efi) partition.

I deleted everything on boot folder, since I didn't need grub or any of those files ( after searching everything individually on internet)

I deleted refind folder, since I didn't need refind boot manager.

I kept insyde folder, since they are my uefi provider.

I kept OEM , microsoft folders because I need windows and whatever my OEM provides.

I kept tools folder since that's just an empty folder ( I didn't know which OS created it)