[Installation] Concept for new installation

[nobbert]

Hello,

I am using Kubuntu since 2007 and have just little precise knowledge, it's mostly just some grains of info here and there, unfortunately...
My plan is to setup up a completely new PC from scratch and I would like to have some advice in order to avoid major mistakes.

Hardware:

• CPU: some AMD, mid price-range
• RAM: 64 GB DDR5
• Mainboard: suitable for above
• SSD: 256 GB M.2
• HDD: 2x 8 TB SATA as Software-RAID1 (brand new), 1x 8 TB as external Backup-Disc (my not-really-old one)

Software:

• OS: Kubuntu 24.04.1 LTS

Partitioning:
1x SSD 256 GB:

• EFI/Boot: 1 GB
• swap: 64 GB
• ext3 /: 64 GB
• ext4 /home: 127 GB

2x HDDs 8 TB as Software-RAID1:

• ext4 /home/RAID: 8 TB

1x HDD 8 TB:

• ext4 (used for backups): 8 TB

Questions:

1. is 64 GB swap enough or should I make it double the RAM-size: 128 GB?
2. is 64 GB root enough? My recent root uses about 31 of 32 GB.
3. does the concept of an usual /home on the SSD for the system's "user data" and an additional /home/RAID on the RAID1 for my own and important data make sense?

Best regards, the not-so-new guy

[skyfishgoo]

you swap should be RAM + sqrt(RAM) if you plan to ever use hibernate.... just sqrt(RAM) if you don't

so either 72GB or or 8GB depending on your use case.

why ext3 and why only 64GB for you system partition? you must not have very much installed, mine is over 70GB (68% of a 100GB partition) and that's on my old machine... the new one has a 200GB system partition (tho it has a 1TB SSD).

i have no opinion on RAID as i've never used it, but seen lost of confusing (conflicting) info on how well it's supported under linux.

[nobbert]

you swap should be RAM + sqrt(RAM) if you plan to ever use hibernate.... just sqrt(RAM) if you don't
so either 72GB or or 8GB depending on your use case.

I'd like to use hibernation, so I'd partition 72 GB of swap - check!

why ext3 and why only 64GB for you system partition? you must not have very much installed, mine is over 70GB (68% of a 100GB partition) and that's on my old machine... the new one has a 200GB system partition (tho it has a 1TB SSD).

So rather ext4 for root as well? And rather just use the rest of the SDD (183 GB) for root?

[skyfishgoo]

how many GB to devote to / vs /home is up to you based on your tendencies to use a lot of different software and how big those files are... a lot of installed software can really balloon your / partition esp if they are GUI applications and or snaps/flatpaks.

my /home tends to be fairly light as i don't keep games or other big projects in there, i put those onto their own dedicated partitions for easy backups.

i would say that for anything in /home that you access frequently, it would be worth having at least a small /home partition for quicker access from the SSD and larger hoards of data can be mounted from the HDD as needed.

[jlittle]

SSD: 256 GB M.2

A puzzling choice in 2025... I used a similar size for many years (it was quite adequate, even with 6 or 7 different installs), for reasons of cost, but these days larger SSDs are much cheaper, and the scarce resource is the M.2 slot.

ext3 /: 64 GB

ext3, not ext4? I wonder why.

As skyfishgoo has pointed out, these days 64 GB for / may be too small. Compared to a few years ago, subsystems like snaps, flatpak and docker can use a lot of space.

Have you considered btrfs? If you want to take backups seriously, and easy recovery from mistakes (f. ex., I deleted /home a few weeks ago) btrfs is good. If you stick to the 256 GB SSD, I recommend btrfs because you don't have to juggle space between / and /home. There's good reasons that a lot of distros, like Fedora, default to btrfs these days.

[Virginio Miranda]

Hello,

I am using Kubuntu since 2007 and have just little precise knowledge, it's mostly just some grains of info here and there, unfortunately...
My plan is to setup up a completely new PC from scratch and I would like to have some advice in order to avoid major mistakes.

Hardware:

• CPU: some AMD, mid price-range
• RAM: 64 GB DDR5
• Mainboard: suitable for above
• SSD: 256 GB M.2
• HDD: 2x 8 TB SATA as Software-RAID1 (brand new), 1x 8 TB as external Backup-Disc (my not-really-old one)

Software:

• OS: Kubuntu 24.04.1 LTS

Partitioning:
1x SSD 256 GB:

• EFI/Boot: 1 GB
• swap: 64 GB
• ext3 /: 64 GB
• ext4 /home: 127 GB

2x HDDs 8 TB as Software-RAID1:

• ext4 /home/RAID: 8 TB

1x HDD 8 TB:

• ext4 (used for backups): 8 TB

Questions:

1. is 64 GB swap enough or should I make it double the RAM-size: 128 GB?
2. is 64 GB root enough? My recent root uses about 31 of 32 GB.
3. does the concept of an usual /home on the SSD for the system's "user data" and an additional /home/RAID on the RAID1 for my own and important data make sense?

Best regards, the not-so-new guy

For the first two questions, it depends of your usage. For the third, it does not make a sense for me.

In my case for example:

1- i Have 32 GB of memory ram and 512 MB of Swap file. I use swap file, not swap partition. I think it is more flexible in case i need to expand. But to tell you the truth my system never use swap. Most of the time it is zero usage. And my Swappiness is equal a 5. I do not hibernate the system, it runs 24/7. It is a cloud system and media server. In your case you are going to hibernate the system, so you need swap ( Probably ). How much? Again, it depends of your usage. You need to to use system monitor to see it. Where to put it? well...i would avoid to put it on SSD for a question of a lot of write and read process. It could decrease the SSD Life Left. In my case i put the Swap in the SSD drive, but remember, my system almost never use it.

2- Again, it depends of your usage. 64 GB can be enough or...can not. I use a SSD 480 GB for / , but i use to symlink my /Home ( /Documents, / Downloads, /Videos, /Music and /Images ) to a differents hard drives ( not SSD ). There a lot of datas on it.

3- As i said before, it does not make a sense, at least for me. It is better to think in a different way. LVM or BTRFS can be a good choice. For my data cloud i use LVM. I can expand it easily if i need, and can mirror it. I can even use a script to automate this operation and save a backup. Some prefer BTRFS, and some LVM. In my case i choose LVM. It is was a question of learning curve.

And the last, i use ext4. Only ext4.

[oshunluvr]

Changes I would make in order of importance:

1. NO 256GB M.2 drive: NVME drives are the same cost and MUCH faster. Also a 500GB NVME drive is literally $5 more than a 256. No one ever complains about too much speed or too much drive space. I realize there may be a budget involved here, but this is not the area to save money.

2. NO EXT file systems: It is waaay out of date. BTRFS provides subvolumes, snapshots, backups, and RAID all built-in. Subvolumes means instead of 4 partitions on your boot drive, you need only 2: EFI and root. BTRFS would allow you to RAID the 2 HDD drives without external RAID like MDADM and send backups to the backup HDD. Frankly, I'd avoid RAID just to prevent the headaches but it's your system.

3. NO swap partition: With 64GB of RAM, you really don't need swap at all unless you're going to hibernate. Regardless, I would use a swap file not a swap partition. This provides the ability to change the swap size or location without re-partitioning.

To answer your questions directly:

Questions:

1. is 64 GB swap enough or should I make it double the RAM-size: 128 GB?
2. is 64 GB root enough? My recent root uses about 31 of 32 GB.
3. does the concept of an usual /home on the SSD for the system's "user data" and an additional /home/RAID on the RAID1 for my own and important data make sense?

1. See #3 above.
2. Yes, plenty but if you use BTRFS (see #2 above) then it doesn't matter. You root subvolume will expand as needed and not have 30 or so GB of wasted space, like you'll have with a 64GB partition.
3. Yes, if I understand you correctly. But only if you stick with a small root drive. IF you spend the extra $5 (#1 above)you'll have 470GB-ish of home space and probably won't need more space. If you do, then I would off-load the largest folders to the RAID (Documents, Music, Videos, et al.) as needed.

[claydoh]

. NVME drives are the same cost and MUCH faster. Also a 500GB NVME drive is literally $5 more than a 256.

To add to this, in most cases the larger nvme drives are faster than the smaller ones, even in the same model range.

[nobbert]

Ok, I ordered a 500 GB SSD instead. And I see, my SSD would only be PCIe 3.0 while my mainboard has one PCIe 4.0 and one PCIe 5.0 slot. So, I might upgrade to PCIe 4.0 at least.
Would the "500GB Kingston Fury Renegade - M.2 (PCIe® 4.0) SSD" be alright? It reads up to 7.300 MB/s. That would be a NVMe drive, right?

Ok, no ext3 for /, in fact I might have mixed it up with a separate boot-partition. So, I'm using ext4 at least or might consider btrfs, thanks for the hint.

Yes, I have a lot of pictures, videos and music, which I want to store on a RAID1. As I understood, my mainboard (ASUS Pro B650M-CT-CSM) supports hardware-RAID1, so I would use this instead of a software-RAID1.

The good thing is, I still have my recent system running and may build up the new one for trying out different configurations, partitioning/LVM or filesystems
Thank you for your answers!

[Virginio Miranda]

Yes, I have a lot of pictures, videos and music, which I want to store on a RAID1. As I understood, my mainboard (ASUS Pro B650M-CT-CSM) supports hardware-RAID1, so I would use this instead of a software-RAID1.

This is not a hardware Raid device, its a software raid instead. Take care using it as a raid function. It is not reliable and can be a nightmare in case of a problem ( loose the array, change the mobo .... and...failures ). It works good as a sata port.

If you are going to use LVM it is better to run Raid1 inside LVM. It has a mirror option, that is much more reliable than the onboard raid software.

[nobbert]

What do you think of my newest concept:

• 128 GB RAM - I've got 4 slots and having much RAM with identical modules is nice for editing many pictures parallel and videos. The modules on my recent system were discontinued when I wanted to double from 16 GB to 32 GB, so I want to avoid the repetition of this scenario by throwing some money at the shop keeper right now
• 256 GB swap - I'll just put a rather cheap PCIe 3.0 SSD in the free M.2 slot and will replace it, once it's worn out or the much faster PCIe 5.0 modules are cheaper. The price for this dedicated swap module is just 26 EUR now... but I can swap (more than needed and) faster than on a HDD, can hibernate and won't wear out my sacred root SSD ;-)
• 1 GB EFI - on a PCIe 4.0 SSD with 500 GB.
• 499 GB root - ext4 or btrfs on above PCIe 4.0 SSD.
• 8 TB home - ext4, btrfs, LVM, RAID... I still have to think a little about this.

In other words:

• 4x 32 GB RAM: 128 GB memory
• 1x 256 GB SSD: 256 GB swap
• 1x 500 GB SSD: 1 GB EFI and 499 GB root
• 2x 8TB HDD: 8 TB home

This way, I'll have a quite fast swap with an enormous size if ever needed - for a reasonable price.
My fast root is huge enough and won't wear out.
Huge user files that don't need that much speed will be stored in a dedicated secure place on two mirrored HDDs and a backup HDD.

[skyfishgoo]

two sticks or ram is always going to be better than 4 sticks for both performance and stability... so if you really think you will be needing 128GB of ram then i would get a 2X64GB kit

[oshunluvr]

Yes, I have a lot of pictures, videos and music, which I want to store on a RAID1. As I understood, my mainboard (ASUS Pro B650M-CT-CSM) supports hardware-RAID1, so I would use this instead of a software-RAID1.

Really bad idea in my opinion and here's why: If the motherboard fails in any way, your RAID is dead - gone - kaput.

If you want to do RAID, either use BTRFS as I suggested or MDADM if you just have to use the ancient EXT4 file system for some reason. That way, if your mobo dies you can just move the RAID drives to a different computer.

[nobbert]

If the motherboard fails in any way, your RAID is dead - gone - kaput.

Kaputt spells with two 't' ;-)
But noted, either check out btrfs or use the software-RAID instead of the mainboard's option.

[claydoh]

Kaputt spells with two 't' ;-)

Not everywhere, lol.