You made a 73 yr old happy as just what the commenters said you explained slow and carefully and the screenshot where big enough for me to read. I replayed multiple times and then ran my own file explorer and I could see what you meant. Most other tutorials are filled with unexplained acronyms , but you took pity on me and told me what each acronym meant, thank you so much. I am looking forward to the next extension to this video. Give my regards to Stanly and Mr. Scissors.
@@ExplainingComputersI'm a student, I had no problems using Linux but it was strange without understanding things, Windows have made the process se effortless I still have dual boot are rarely use Ubuntu although its amazing
I just switched over to Linux, specifically Ubuntu, about 3 to 4 months ago. I definitely have no plans of going back to Windows. Regarding the topic discussed in this video, I was not very clear about it until now. All the information was explained in a very nice and easy-to-understand way, and I've decided to watch it a few more times to properly absorb the content. I'm really grateful for your efforts and very happy to have come across your channel. Keep up the good work!
I've also recently made the switch. This video provides a great foundation to understand what the commands used to set things up are doing and why you are using them. I think that deeper level of understanding overlooked by most tutorials is a huge help in getting to the next level of understand where you can do things without having to follow a guide. Personally, sense the end of support for windows 10, I've switched over to linux. I considered using something more complex like arch, but having limited experience with it figured I'd start with Ubuntu as well. Now's a great time for it as they've just recently released their LTS 24.04.1 version. Perhaps I'll switch over to something that offers greater control in the future when I'm more comfortable with the environment. I didn't want to make a complete break from windows so I still have my old windows boot drive installed and I can still boot to it, but I haven't found the need. My AMD CPU doesn't have integrated graphics, but I do have two GPUs installed, so I set one up for PCI passthrough and spun up some VMs. I'm actually writing this comment from a Windows 10 VM running on my linux machine. It's not quite as seamless as running windows on bare metal, but it works alright. It took a whole weekend to get that all up and running the way I liked. Passing through my USB headset, sharing my keyboard and mouse with Evdev, sharing directories between the host and VM. Now that I have this setup there are so many other things to try. I've also set up a bridge connection so that I can access my VMs from my LAN. That has opened up a whole new world of networking options. I set up a shared drive with samba and configured the firewall to allow connections through with UFW. Now I can easily move files to and from my computer from my phone or any other device on the network. I set up RDP on my host so that I can remote in from the guest or from anything on the network with a client. I'll have to switch to a Windows 10 pro version from home to be able to remote into it, but with it being a virtual machine I don't even have to take my computer out of commission to do that. I'm currently setting up a raid 5 array with three of my 6tb iron wolf pro HDDs. This way even if one of my hard drives fail I won't lose my files. And with the built in write-intent bitmap, enabled by default, prevents write holes, so even if the system crashes midwrite the array isn't corrupted. The next step will be setting up an openVPN server with DynamicDNS. This way I'll be able to connect to my local network from anywhere despite having a dynamic IP. It's been so much fun learning how to set all of this stuff up and that's all in the first week. It has really inspired me to push harder to expand the depth and breadth of my knowledge. Now I have all sorts of project ideas. I'd like to switch from my TPLink router either to ubiquiti or mikrotik router then set up some VLANs. I'd love to be able to run some cheap IoT devices without neccicarily giving them access to everything on the network or even internet access. I don't have a smart TV, but if I did I wouldn't want it dialing home. I think I might switch to a PFSense router/firewall at some point, but I'd still need a wireless access point and I want to move away from TPLink. I trust TPLink about as much as I trust Lenovo or Huawei. I'm even thinking about trying some security stuff. I took a SANS course on security a few years back. While I enjoyed it I don't think I've really retained much of it because there's hardly a need for me to run stuff like metasploit or sqlmap. I've always been curious about how one could exploit a bufferoverflow to actually execute something. Even with a gigantic NOPsled you'd think with address space layout randomization it'd be impossible to get the program counter to land on your shellcode. Maybe I can write something to make that happen. I recently heard about some vulnerabilities in the vector instructions of some of XuanTie's RISC V cpus. I don't have a c910 or c920, but I've got a c908, so I can't do that actual ghostwrite vulnerability, but maybe I can figure out something to do the one impacting the chip I've got. There's probably a proof of concept on github I can use. I've spent so much time writing boring .net webapps and just generally being trapped by Windows. I feel so much better having broadened my horizons.
I have found that Ubuntu 24.04, and all it's variants, to be very buggy. When 22.04 was running, it was perfect, but now they made it into a train wreck. I stick with Debian 12 these days.
@@rootcanal7188 Ubuntu has been slowly going to the "dark side", I'm afraid. They insist on their own "snap" package format, and it really isn't ready for prime time. Apps start too slow, the sandboxing gets in the way all the time (like trying to use "open with..." from the file explorer often just doesn't work at all), it creates this weird "loopback" file systems that are messy cluttering up your file system view (doing "lsblk" on Ubuntu with a load of snaps installed, lists a false "block device" for every single snap - it's really annoying when you're trying to sort out your actual disks to have all this bullshit cluttering up the listing). And, on the philosophical side, though "snap" is open source, no-one else uses it. Not technically proprietary, but it might as well be. Ubuntu had gone down the "dark side" before. Where everyone else was going to move to Wayland to replace the aging X window system, Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) decided to make their own one. Why? Don't know. When it didn't go anywhere and no-one was following suit, they eventually gave up on it. Ubuntu used to be the distro that was recommended. But, these days, I'd say it's Linux Mint. Linux Mint is actually derived from Ubuntu - but it was forked away from Ubuntu by people who really didn't agree with where Canonical was going. Yeah, Ubuntu is getting worse. I'm on Ubuntu 22.04, just because I started with Ubuntu back in the day and have kept going with it. But I'm resisting 24.04, though it keeps reminding me to upgrade, and 'm tempted to jump to Linux Mint instead. Or maybe Debian itself (the distro they all derive from).
Long time user... never really understood the mounting designations and didn't really care but this video cleared up a lot of things for me. Thank you so much.
@@ExplainingComputers Hi, do you find Ubuntu 24.04 to be buggy? I found 24.04 and ALL variants to be so buggy as to be unusable. Am I doing something wrong, or should I just stick with Debian 12? Thanks.
@@rootcanal7188 Just my two cents. Stick with the distro that works for you. From my limited experience, some distros work on particular hardware better than others. I like Mint but it doesn't like my laptop, was a bit 'buggy', so I switched to Ubuntu, which seems to work better. No OS is free from 'bugs', if your system is working well then do regular 'Timeshift' system backups [on external drive] of it to restore to, if in the future you get a spanner in the works.
It is quite obvious that your calling in life is to be a teacher. Everything was wonderfully explained and though I knew most of the things, I still found value in watching your whole video. Thank you for everything you've uploaded over the years. I still remember buying my first SSD to switch out my wife's slow hard drive years ago and landing on one of your videos where you showed me how to create an image of the disk and write it to the smaller SSD.
This channel is gold - even with a computer engineering degree, and having worked in the industry for 20 years, it feels like I'm learning things properly for the first time!! Your style of explanation is so wonderful! Thank you and I'm looking forward to learning more in this channel!
Thanks Chris for an excellent & well explained video. Coming from Windows to Linux it does take a bit of time getting used to, the way drives & partitions are marked out, I always take notes as I find this helps make sense of things. I occasionally use ‘Disks', my go to is 'Gparted', for adding, partitioning, resizing drives or changing a file system. This can be downloaded from the ‘Software Manager’ if it’s not already installed on your distro.
Relatively new Linux user here, driven away from Windows 11 by Microsoft. I love your educational videos and refer back to them as I need to for years after you make them. This is another gem.
I really appreciate the way you present content! SLOW, clear, and articulate!!! Some UA-camrs speak SO fast, I can't understand them, and have to playback at reduced speed. So, THANK YOU!
This video came at the perfect time for me. I knew I wasn't upgrading to Win11 with all its built-in privacy issues, but a couple weeks ago my Win10 was giving me problems and I got fed up and chucked it. I'm now 100% on Linux Mint Mate. I'm over 60, and if this old man can do it then so can you. Stop letting Microsoft mine your personal data.
Thank you very much for this video, it helped me a lot in my migration, since Win 10 is going to lose support. I'm not completely there yet, but with videos like yours it becomes much easier for a Windows born and raised user like me to do the switch. You have just the right speed of talking and the right amount of technical knowledge required that I can follow you easily. Keep up the great work!
Brand new Ubuntu user (installed on Thursday). As always, Chris, you explain your topic completely and clearly for the novice (or even some experienced users). I'm going to rush to your terminal video. Can't wait for your new video on this subject. Thanks Chris!
@@Praxibetel-Ix Morning Ford I hope that all is well with you over the pond, we're getting battered by storm 'Bert' at the moment I'm just glad to be indoors ;)
@alanthornton3530 Aw, man, I hope you and everyone else over there stays safe! It's bright, sunny, and cold this morning where I live. EDIT: I forgot to say that I'm doing just fine. Thanks! :3
I started using Mint around the start of the year myself! Alas, I still have to use Windows for a couple certain things but for everything else? Linux all the way!
@@Praxibetel-Ix Apart from Photoshop that I used to use EVERY day, (seriously, I used to have it load on start up!) I don't miss Windows. I can still Wine Photoshop if I'm desperate, but I no longer need Adobe. For artwork, especially since the rise of A.I. I have abandoned digital art & am returning to traditional media. Which is a kick in the guts for me as I always loved digital artwork & what it could produce.
@@moussaadem7933 Thank you. Tried Krita. It would take me years to get used to its clunkyness. Apart from some nice brushes it's a poor replacement for PS. For me anyway.
@@Praxibetel-Ix They probably used switchroot, just google it. I currently use the Ubuntu variant and it is quite usable. HD youtube playback works and general web browsing is good. All the drivers work perfectly, including GPU, sound, USB, networking, bluetooth, and even the joycons. You can even dock the switch to an external monitor and use it as a mini PC. A really good project if you need a spare HTPC (that is what I used mine for before getting a MacBook).
You provide a great resource. So useful to those of us that could never work this out for ourselves, but are capable of grasping the technical details when explained by someone who explains things so well. You are a gifted teacher.
Recently stumbled across my old aluminium MacBook from 2009 while rummaging through the attic. Decided to pop in an SSD and a new battery (amazing that that is still available, although third party ofcourse). I installed LM Cinnamon 21.3. With that version and kernel all functions work well, like screen brightness and so. It is a very well usable machine again with this new, up-to-date software (couldn't do that with MacOS ;-) ) Anyway, there I am! And it is all because I became a member of this channel and you taught me this! Thank you very much for your magnificent lessons. You really know how to explain complicated things and make them accessible to everyone. Greetings from a Dutch fan!
Very true. Indeed I now find drive information in Linux easier to understand than Windows as the information is laid out plainly in front of you with only one terminal command.
It's also a lot more flexible as a result. Having a storage drive that I dedicate to my media server mounted inside my home directory's video folder is so much more convenient than having to build an entirely new directory structure under a different drive letter
@@seto007 You can mount drives to folders on Windows for I don't know, like 20 years? There's no need to use drive letters at all. You can even mount UNC paths (network shares) to folders and present them like regular folders on your regular local drive. Windows is very flexible in this regard, much more than Linux is. I would love to see Linux handling network / UNC paths like this, unfortunately it does not. It also does not allow me to mount anything in some kind of "This PC" view, which is what the drive letter abstraction makes possible. All in all, flexibility is on the Windows side of things, if you know your business. EDIT: No need for drive letters is what I said, that's true, but you need C:\ at least for Windows itself, but you still can mount C:\ to any folder as well.
@@ytbone9430 Yes. *One command on linux* or: 1. In the search box on the taskbar, enter Computer Management, and select Disk Management. 2. Choose the partition or volume that has the folder you want to mount the drive. 3. Go to Action > All Tasks > Change Drive Letter and Paths, then choose Add. 4. Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder option. 5. Select the Browse button to locate the folder. 6. After you select the folder, choose select OK. 7. Select OK in the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog box to finish. So yes, absolutely you _can_ do that. Calling windows "flexible" in the same sentence as linux is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a looooong time. Do you work for them? Are you getting payed to spread disinformation?
While working at Free Geek here in Toronto (A social enterprise refurbishing and redeploying computers to low-income clients and other social agencies.) We developed a standard installation procedure for desktops and laptops for Linux. As part of that we partitioned the drives so that there was a partition for the OS and temp files and then there was a second partition for user data. That way if the clients messed up their system, we could quickly restore it and their data was kept safe.
I just checked out your website, very impressive focus and values! We have a similar service in Kitchener, dealing with the same demographic. We also have an organization, with a much larger mandate, including refurbishing bicycles, etc.
@ I’m actually looking for someone to help me get a small server (hp DL 60 G9) up and running g with Ubuntu server and update its firmware (I have the firmware image). Then configure it as a home lab. I had RHEL developer's edition but have been locked out since the licence expired.
This video is very helpful. Recently switched one of my Windows 10 laptops over to Ubuntu 24.04 and I’m impressed with it. This video answered a few questions I was curious about. As always, looking forward to your next video!
Very helpful. I wish I watched you when I was first learning how to use the root, directories, and partitions. I so wish that more Teachers taught like you. You make it less intimidating.
I liked this video a lot. I keep my home directory on a seperate hard drive. This is absolute paradise. All of my personal files are in home, and all of my software and data are all in flatpaks also in my home sirectory.
Excellent strategy ... I remember when I learnt this trick many years ago. As mentioned by @smile768 it made life a LOT easier for me back then, when I was a chronic disto-hopper. Now that I have settled down, yes it's solid advice for OS recovery, as well as general file management =)
I really like the style of your video. It is the "Anti"-Style for todays tutorial: You are patient and explain stuff in detail. Other tutorials often are fast cut, fast spoken and hard to follow the content and focus more on presentation than on content. Great video for explaining stuff I've used years but never thought about (like the naming conventions)
I can deal with that start counting from 0 vs 1, but what I find really frustrating on Linux is the fact, that these device ids or numbers change, if you add / remove devices. /dev/sda is "sda", even though it is connected to the second SATA port. If you connect something to the first SATA port, "sda" becomes "sdb" and you have a new "sda", what are the Linux developers smokling? The same happens for network card interfaces if you add / remove them, which screws up the machine, just like the enumeration changes if you add any drive . It's bad, you can like Linux how much you want, this is just bad. Not booting into the OS if one of the drives referenced in fstab is missing is also bad, at least if there is no option to just ignore missing devices and keep booting into a working system. A Linux desktop is like lipstick on a pig.. oink oink! o))
@@ytbone9430 it's always enumerating on the first device plugged in, that is how it is made, or else USB hubs will seriously confuse the system, if you do want it to have a specific numbering per port then you just need to set that up in udev
Partitioning is one of the most weirdest things I encountered as a new user, and there was so much conflicting info. Take swap sizes, like I found info saying it should be 10 times your ram then people told me that is severely outdated. I was unsure if I HAD to have a home partition, but I realized I could just use subvolumes with btrfs. I eventually settled on this: I only have swap space thats the same as my ram for hibernation, boot partition is 512mb and the rest is root partition with subvolumes. This is not super secure, ideally you should have a home partition that's encrypted. But I dont switch distros enough nor do I care enough to have a home partition personally.
I'm a Raspberry Pi guy so not a big leap for me BUT I'm teaching my family and 76yo Dad how to switch because as a family we our boycotting Windows. This series is just what we need. Make Open Source Great Again! MOSGA!
Hey Chris. Thank you for a very informative video, on what is becoming more and more important: Linux! I hope you will indeed keep producing useful and relevant videos on using Linux. I know there are many UA-cam videos on the subject, but your videos always get to the heart of a subject, without a lot of unnecessary distractions. Thanks for all your hard work! Take Good Care!
Another great video. I’ve picked up some of the information along the way with brute force and ignorance, but this video has really helped me to see the actual layout and how things are organized. Thank you very much!
Thank you Chris. As always, you did an excellent job of explaining followed up with examples. What surprised me the most was the Disks application. The mount/unmount button and gear icon. Very exciting and will be helpful for me going forward. Cheers.
I switched to linux in 1996 or 1997, I can't remember precisely when, but it was pretty primitive then. Fortunately, I knew people who were familiar with linux to guide me. Your guides serve that purpose very well.
Excellent video, enjoyed it a lot. I learned quite a bit.... This could be a series. You could probably cover a whole lot of topics on this.... Thank you for your time; Monte
Well done AGAIN Chris, entertainingly presented at exactly the right level AGAIN for me and I'm sure others. I've tried Linux a few times over the last 25+ years but always came back to Windows, but with Mint 22 and your expert guidance I'm quite confident the next move will be permanent (well including wine ..). My one disappointment is that "Boulder Dash" doesn't seem to be still available. Really appreciate your excellent work Chris.
Thanks Chris for your easy to follow Linux storage systems. It makes me wish they had Linux computer classes down at my local community college. Good to see a shout out for Stanley the knife and Mr Scissors…👍😀! Have a great week!
FYI: All Unix-like operating systems such as BSD and even MacOS largely function as described in this video. Windows with its legacy drive letters, is the outlier.
Great explanation of the storage devices in Linux! Been using Linux since the early late 90's when I would have to compile the kernel to get my modem to work and couldn't have done as good a job going through all the naming schemes Linux has for devices.
Exciting option. (My main OS is Linux mint 22.) I recently helped a friend install linux mint 21.3 into his Mac 2009 laptop. His laptop hasn't been able to update the apple OS for many years and he has felt the pressure to buy a brand new apple laptop. He has felt that apple is too proprietary anyway and wanted a complete switch. His main interests are programming and music. His laptop runs very well now with linux and although the video must run at 720p (but very smoothly) in every other way his laptop feels like a brand new machine. Codeblocks runs excellently and rythumbox has replaced iTunes. Thus he has kept his machine from the landfill.
Hi. Wow. I have just got a laptop with Ubuntu. Big thanks. Seeing this. Make me go back so many years ago in dos 1. 2 and so on. Why, you say. Well i am now 71. Feb i will be 72. And have gone back to my early days at looking at Linux. Good old days. Just a few lesson's 😊 I am now enjoying learning again so to speak. A bit easy second time around. Marking these as my new lesson's. 😊😊😊😊😊
Thanks for putting this together and sharing. Really useful, didn't know about the lsblk. Looking forward to the more comprehensive video. Chris, if you able to break it into 'chunks' that are sort of organic or say build on each other, I personally have found these easier to understand but I'll go with the flow as what you post is always helpful
more on this subject please. 1. setting up and creating permanent mount point and permissions. 2. access mounted drives from other devices (Windows, Linux, Apple, etc.). 3. accessing other devices (NAS drives, Windows computers, etc. as permanent mounts) ... local network accessibility. This would be very helpful.
Thanks Chris, I'm sure this video will be invaluable to those trying out Linux in the coming year! Also, thought you might be interested to know that we have a fantastic Computing Museum over here in Derby. It might possibly make for good content in a field trip video?
That is one of the best explanations of the typical Linux drive and directory system that I have seen. Very clear, and nice that you didn't just dumb things down and breeze right past block storage devices like most "explainers". And yeah "disks" is very nice. I use it instead of dd whenever I can, because it is so convenient and intuitive. To use dd you have to always be reading the man file or the help file or remember a few dozen options, and they don't call it "disk destroyer" for nothing. dd is crazy powerful but disks will do nearly any disk mangement task you would ever need. Four suggestions for future videos: Low level incremental backup with a shell script that calls rsync. Dead easy once you have the script set up, and you can even let it run automatically with cron though myself I prefer to initiate it manually. Most backup utilities make too many decisions "for your own good, you simple minded user, you" and don't back up stuff you actually should back up, and waste space backing up stuff you probably already have on another drive anyway, such as movies or music. Plus you can do incremental backups instead of full or selective backups, so daily backups don't fill up a 4TB USB drive every third or 4th day. This to me is the ultimate backup system. Yeah I do a daily backup. It's the right thing to do. Initial partition setup for a first time Linux installer. The default in many distros is to put everything on one big partition. At the very least, the new Linux user should right away be in the habit of creating a separate partition for /home so he can do a system delete and re-install and not lose all his personal files. An explanation of the terminal. I differ with you on this, you really can't use linux to its full potential without using terminal. More important than trying to list every single command or operator, would be listing a few ways to get help and solve a problem as it happens instead of trying to already know everything before something happens or needs to be done. However, a good explanation of the use of python in the terminal would be nice. I always have a terminal window open in the python envorinment, and I always have the math library imported. It is like the world's best calculator. I forgot the fourth one already but I know you will think of it. A few years ago, only the called, the chosen, the zealots went around telling people that they MUST move to a grownup operating system. It was a way for the fringe kooks to validate their own choices, and engage in a bit of elitism. Now, with WinDOHs getting suckier and suckier, regular folks are suggesting a move to a fairly user friendly distro like Ubuntu, Mint, or their daddy, Debian. Again, well done, nice video.
Very nice overview of the Linux filesystems and device management -- hopefully this works to clarify for Windows users Linux's somewhat more advanced method of dealing with storage!
Great explanation. I use Windows at work but I've been using Ubuntu as my daily computer for 5 years now. I support FOSS but my main reason for switching was less ideological and more practical, as my prior computer with Windows 10 became unusable with constant crashes and seemingly endless updates at the worst times. Linux supports live patches so most updates don't even require a reboot, and it's entirely within your control when to update, what to update, or even whether to update at all (at your own peril of deferred security patches, of course). As for the version, I recommend Mint for casual users and Ubuntu for people a little more comfortable with computers in general and breaking with the familiar desktop layout in particular. I've heard that Ubuntu 24.04 is buggy (still on 22.04 myself), so I might not get the newest version. Also, exactly as he said, the command is not necessary at all. I've been accustomed to using it, just because there are so many things that are so much easier to do by just copying and pasting some commands (provided of course you have at least an idea of what you're doing). But 99% of people could use Linux their entire lives just fine without touching the command line, same as Windows.
One thing that confused me when I started using Linux (about 30 years ago!) was the idea of the root partition / and the root directory /root - we needed Explaining Computers back then!
This is great stuff and warrats a few views to absorb it all. Tinkering with Mint, so this has cleared up a lot of potential confusion without me having to do lots of reading. Looking forward to the drives/devices etc outing.
Thank you for your effort once again. I have experimented with Linux before but your content will definitely come in handy when I officially make the switch. 🏆
What a wonderful series, please keep working on them as they are tremenduse help for thoes who can no longer tolorate the non sense microsoft is doing. Much love.
I'm pleased to see this channel rolling out more Linux jazz. I am currently dual booting, trying to decide on what distro to settle on. I enjoy Mint but not sure about it's direction with wayland. Zorin, Arch, & Fedora also in the running.
"If you don't know exactly what you're doing, be very careful indeed when using Disks...." I'm happy to accept that advice! Actually, after fooling around with (and using, to some degree) Linux for about 3 years, I've absorbed very little about Linex file system, partitions, etc. I know what to do when, say, wanting to install a distro in a partition I create...but NOT because I actually grasp it but, rather, because I've simply learned the steps. I've decided that, for me, trying to understand Linux drives and partitions is about as hopeless as my trying to understand the Circle of Fifths! 😑
Wow Chris, great video! I thought you were going to explain how to install Linux from scratch. I originally tried to install Redhat linux a LONG time ago, but got stumped when it asked me to set up the various partitions, as well as how big they should be. Kind of scared me off of Linux for a while :)
been running Linux for decades. I still learned something I did not know. Thanks again! :) Disappointed that Stanley T.K. does not have his own file. :)
After experimenting with Windows and Linux distro-hopping finaly i found peace in macOS, iOS. But i still watch this channel for about some news like Raspberry Pi, ssds, Flash drives etc. Only Rpi5 home server/router keeps me to keep eye on those Linux news. Thanks for video
Luckily I learned Unix before being indoctrinated into the world of DOS/Windows, so this was old hat for me, but always a welcome refresher of the basics. I've mostly stuck to the command line for system interaction, so I was glad you showed the GUI versions.
Thank you for this. It greatly assists in my present transition from WIN10 to Mint. Please add a video on the use of DD command and/or the use of a "rescue" USB and a further video on Syncthing or similar program to migrate data from a WIN10 device to a Linux device. Every time I hit a problem EC delivers a video which explains the predicament with great clarity. Thank you for all of your work. Greatly appreciated.
Thank you for this video it has really helped me! I am planing on switching to Linux when Windows 10 support ends. I have always used Windows and have no experience with Linux. I've watched you video on ZorinOS and I am planing to switch to that. Thanks again....I only have a few months left to learn everything :)
When I switched from OS/2 Warp 4.5 to Mandrake Linux I was a bit confused at first but soon got used to the drive layout. I could never go back to the MS-DOS file system format! Now a C: drive is a trip to the beach! 🤣 I'm also used to having a minimum of three partitions on my boot drive, I always put /home on a separate partition, it makes reinstalling much easier.
Very timely! My computer updated and decided to have no icons so I'm trying to move back over to Linux. Videos are great as always Christopher thank you!
Thanks. Having first used unix in the early 1980s I've no problem with devices, mount points and directories. But I'll be amazed if you manage to give as clear an explanation as today for using the Linux Volume Manager and all its associated commands. (Although I'll not be surprised if you don't try on the grounds that it isn't the most Algorithm pleasing topic.)
This is a useful terminology introduction for devices with media in place. Another video for removable media drives, and how to use them interactively would be appreciated. I'm thinking about terminal commands to do things, but GUIs are good, too.
This is the perfect explainer video for this topic, well laid out and easy to follow. It makes me think how I actually prefer the way Linux handles this, especially for how it communicates to the user in the GUI. I never liked the drive letter thing Windows did it can lead to confusion with less knowledgeable users especially if they try and set up shortcuts to files on external drives etc and the drive letter changed because of plugging in a usb disk or whatever. That said it's a bit more involved to make drives automount at startup in Linux.
You made a 73 yr old happy as just what the commenters said you explained slow and carefully and the screenshot where big enough for me to read. I replayed multiple times and then ran my own file explorer and I could see what you meant. Most other tutorials are filled with unexplained acronyms , but you took pity on me and told me what each acronym meant, thank you so much. I am looking forward to the next extension to this video. Give my regards to Stanly and Mr. Scissors.
Thanks for this. :)
@@ExplainingComputersI'm a student, I had no problems using Linux but it was strange without understanding things,
Windows have made the process se effortless I still have dual boot are rarely use Ubuntu although its amazing
I just switched over to Linux, specifically Ubuntu, about 3 to 4 months ago. I definitely have no plans of going back to Windows. Regarding the topic discussed in this video, I was not very clear about it until now. All the information was explained in a very nice and easy-to-understand way, and I've decided to watch it a few more times to properly absorb the content. I'm really grateful for your efforts and very happy to have come across your channel. Keep up the good work!
I've also recently made the switch. This video provides a great foundation to understand what the commands used to set things up are doing and why you are using them. I think that deeper level of understanding overlooked by most tutorials is a huge help in getting to the next level of understand where you can do things without having to follow a guide.
Personally, sense the end of support for windows 10, I've switched over to linux. I considered using something more complex like arch, but having limited experience with it figured I'd start with Ubuntu as well. Now's a great time for it as they've just recently released their LTS 24.04.1 version. Perhaps I'll switch over to something that offers greater control in the future when I'm more comfortable with the environment.
I didn't want to make a complete break from windows so I still have my old windows boot drive installed and I can still boot to it, but I haven't found the need. My AMD CPU doesn't have integrated graphics, but I do have two GPUs installed, so I set one up for PCI passthrough and spun up some VMs. I'm actually writing this comment from a Windows 10 VM running on my linux machine. It's not quite as seamless as running windows on bare metal, but it works alright.
It took a whole weekend to get that all up and running the way I liked. Passing through my USB headset, sharing my keyboard and mouse with Evdev, sharing directories between the host and VM. Now that I have this setup there are so many other things to try.
I've also set up a bridge connection so that I can access my VMs from my LAN. That has opened up a whole new world of networking options. I set up a shared drive with samba and configured the firewall to allow connections through with UFW. Now I can easily move files to and from my computer from my phone or any other device on the network. I set up RDP on my host so that I can remote in from the guest or from anything on the network with a client. I'll have to switch to a Windows 10 pro version from home to be able to remote into it, but with it being a virtual machine I don't even have to take my computer out of commission to do that.
I'm currently setting up a raid 5 array with three of my 6tb iron wolf pro HDDs. This way even if one of my hard drives fail I won't lose my files. And with the built in write-intent bitmap, enabled by default, prevents write holes, so even if the system crashes midwrite the array isn't corrupted.
The next step will be setting up an openVPN server with DynamicDNS. This way I'll be able to connect to my local network from anywhere despite having a dynamic IP. It's been so much fun learning how to set all of this stuff up and that's all in the first week. It has really inspired me to push harder to expand the depth and breadth of my knowledge. Now I have all sorts of project ideas.
I'd like to switch from my TPLink router either to ubiquiti or mikrotik router then set up some VLANs. I'd love to be able to run some cheap IoT devices without neccicarily giving them access to everything on the network or even internet access. I don't have a smart TV, but if I did I wouldn't want it dialing home. I think I might switch to a PFSense router/firewall at some point, but I'd still need a wireless access point and I want to move away from TPLink. I trust TPLink about as much as I trust Lenovo or Huawei.
I'm even thinking about trying some security stuff. I took a SANS course on security a few years back. While I enjoyed it I don't think I've really retained much of it because there's hardly a need for me to run stuff like metasploit or sqlmap. I've always been curious about how one could exploit a bufferoverflow to actually execute something. Even with a gigantic NOPsled you'd think with address space layout randomization it'd be impossible to get the program counter to land on your shellcode. Maybe I can write something to make that happen.
I recently heard about some vulnerabilities in the vector instructions of some of XuanTie's RISC V cpus. I don't have a c910 or c920, but I've got a c908, so I can't do that actual ghostwrite vulnerability, but maybe I can figure out something to do the one impacting the chip I've got. There's probably a proof of concept on github I can use.
I've spent so much time writing boring .net webapps and just generally being trapped by Windows. I feel so much better having broadened my horizons.
Same here. I still have windows for my CompTIA certs, but Ubuntu is my daily driver
Try fedora now
I have found that Ubuntu 24.04, and all it's variants, to be very buggy. When 22.04 was running, it was perfect, but now they made it into a train wreck. I stick with Debian 12 these days.
@@rootcanal7188 Ubuntu has been slowly going to the "dark side", I'm afraid. They insist on their own "snap" package format, and it really isn't ready for prime time.
Apps start too slow, the sandboxing gets in the way all the time (like trying to use "open with..." from the file explorer often just doesn't work at all), it creates this weird "loopback" file systems that are messy cluttering up your file system view (doing "lsblk" on Ubuntu with a load of snaps installed, lists a false "block device" for every single snap - it's really annoying when you're trying to sort out your actual disks to have all this bullshit cluttering up the listing).
And, on the philosophical side, though "snap" is open source, no-one else uses it. Not technically proprietary, but it might as well be.
Ubuntu had gone down the "dark side" before. Where everyone else was going to move to Wayland to replace the aging X window system, Canonical (makers of Ubuntu) decided to make their own one. Why? Don't know. When it didn't go anywhere and no-one was following suit, they eventually gave up on it.
Ubuntu used to be the distro that was recommended. But, these days, I'd say it's Linux Mint. Linux Mint is actually derived from Ubuntu - but it was forked away from Ubuntu by people who really didn't agree with where Canonical was going.
Yeah, Ubuntu is getting worse. I'm on Ubuntu 22.04, just because I started with Ubuntu back in the day and have kept going with it. But I'm resisting 24.04, though it keeps reminding me to upgrade, and 'm tempted to jump to Linux Mint instead. Or maybe Debian itself (the distro they all derive from).
Long time user... never really understood the mounting designations and didn't really care but this video cleared up a lot of things for me. Thank you so much.
Same here, I've been running Linux since '02.
@@ampex189 Get this, even took a class in Linux. And, he made it seem much more understandable, because it wasn't covered like this in class.
Videos about Linux are always welcome!
They sure are :D
Thanks for your support, most appreciated.
@@ExplainingComputers Hi, do you find Ubuntu 24.04 to be buggy? I found 24.04 and ALL variants to be so buggy as to be unusable. Am I doing something wrong, or should I just stick with Debian 12? Thanks.
@@rootcanal7188 Just my two cents. Stick with the distro that works for you. From my limited experience, some distros work on particular hardware better than others. I like Mint but it doesn't like my laptop, was a bit 'buggy', so I switched to Ubuntu, which seems to work better. No OS is free from 'bugs', if your system is working well then do regular 'Timeshift' system backups [on external drive] of it to restore to, if in the future you get a spanner in the works.
They bring nourishment to the soul
It is quite obvious that your calling in life is to be a teacher. Everything was wonderfully explained and though I knew most of the things, I still found value in watching your whole video. Thank you for everything you've uploaded over the years. I still remember buying my first SSD to switch out my wife's slow hard drive years ago and landing on one of your videos where you showed me how to create an image of the disk and write it to the smaller SSD.
This channel is gold - even with a computer engineering degree, and having worked in the industry for 20 years, it feels like I'm learning things properly for the first time!! Your style of explanation is so wonderful! Thank you and I'm looking forward to learning more in this channel!
I can't believe how much I learned here after so many years using Linux. You're a great teacher, Chris. Thank you!
Isn't Chris a university professor or something like that?
Thanks Chris for an excellent & well explained video. Coming from Windows to Linux it does take a bit of time getting used to, the way drives & partitions are marked out, I always take notes as I find this helps make sense of things.
I occasionally use ‘Disks', my go to is 'Gparted', for adding, partitioning, resizing drives or changing a file system. This can be downloaded from the ‘Software Manager’ if it’s not already installed on your distro.
Thanks for your support. :)
Hi, Alan! :D
@@ExplainingComputers For the tea & biccie fund :)
This would be a great addition to your "Linux Survival Guide" playlist. It's a gem of a series!
Relatively new Linux user here, driven away from Windows 11 by Microsoft. I love your educational videos and refer back to them as I need to for years after you make them. This is another gem.
Thanks for Linux internals presented articulately and logically organized
Thanks for your support. :)
I really appreciate the way you present content! SLOW, clear, and articulate!!! Some UA-camrs speak SO fast, I can't understand them, and have to playback at reduced speed. So, THANK YOU!
This video came at the perfect time for me. I knew I wasn't upgrading to Win11 with all its built-in privacy issues, but a couple weeks ago my Win10 was giving me problems and I got fed up and chucked it. I'm now 100% on Linux Mint Mate. I'm over 60, and if this old man can do it then so can you. Stop letting Microsoft mine your personal data.
I have not used Linux for 25 years. This was a perfect refresher on mount points and block devices. Thanks.
As someone who made the switch to Linux years ago I think this series is awesome!
Great explanation.
Chris’s videos are always dynamic and easy to understand. 👍🏼
Thank you very much for this video, it helped me a lot in my migration, since Win 10 is going to lose support. I'm not completely there yet, but with videos like yours it becomes much easier for a Windows born and raised user like me to do the switch. You have just the right speed of talking and the right amount of technical knowledge required that I can follow you easily. Keep up the great work!
Good luck with your migration! :)
Brand new Ubuntu user (installed on Thursday). As always, Chris, you explain your topic completely and clearly for the novice (or even some experienced users). I'm going to rush to your terminal video. Can't wait for your new video on this subject. Thanks Chris!
I’m a noob too; Ubuntu for the last 3-4 months. Welcome to the club!
There also was a designation hda, hdb etc used for those old PATA/IDE drives. My first computer (which ran Linux) had one of those as its boot drive.
WOOOO HOOOOO!!! LINUX!!! 🐧❤️
Also, a contribution to the tea fund. Good morning/afternoon! :)
Thanks for your support! :)
@@ExplainingComputers You're welcome! I'm always happy to help. :)
@@Praxibetel-Ix Morning Ford I hope that all is well with you over the pond, we're getting battered by storm 'Bert' at the moment I'm just glad to be indoors ;)
@alanthornton3530 Aw, man, I hope you and everyone else over there stays safe! It's bright, sunny, and cold this morning where I live.
EDIT: I forgot to say that I'm doing just fine. Thanks! :3
Switched to Mint around the beginning of this year. Haven't looked back & don't miss Windows at all.
I started using Mint around the start of the year myself! Alas, I still have to use Windows for a couple certain things but for everything else? Linux all the way!
@@Praxibetel-Ix Apart from Photoshop that I used to use EVERY day, (seriously, I used to have it load on start up!) I don't miss Windows. I can still Wine Photoshop if I'm desperate, but I no longer need Adobe. For artwork, especially since the rise of A.I. I have abandoned digital art & am returning to traditional media. Which is a kick in the guts for me as I always loved digital artwork & what it could produce.
@@andiisynuse Krita, your usecase is perfect for it
@@moussaadem7933 Thank you. Tried Krita. It would take me years to get used to its clunkyness. Apart from some nice brushes it's a poor replacement for PS. For me anyway.
Just installed Kubuntu on my Nintendo Switch. First time I use Linux, so now I have to learn all about it!
WHOA, that sounds really far out! How did you manage to install Kubuntu on your Switch?
Good luck with Linux.
Nintendo would like a word with you in private.
@@Praxibetel-Ix They probably used switchroot, just google it. I currently use the Ubuntu variant and it is quite usable. HD youtube playback works and general web browsing is good. All the drivers work perfectly, including GPU, sound, USB, networking, bluetooth, and even the joycons. You can even dock the switch to an external monitor and use it as a mini PC. A really good project if you need a spare HTPC (that is what I used mine for before getting a MacBook).
@@km-electronics1 Too bad all the switch models can be mod-chipped
You provide a great resource. So useful to those of us that could never work this out for ourselves, but are capable of grasping the technical details when explained by someone who explains things so well. You are a gifted teacher.
Thank you, again, sir. Added to my 'give to linux newbies' list of system explanations. You have a great way of explaining things like this.
Recently stumbled across my old aluminium MacBook from 2009 while rummaging through the attic. Decided to pop in an SSD and a new battery (amazing that that is still available, although third party ofcourse). I installed LM Cinnamon 21.3. With that version and kernel all functions work well, like screen brightness and so. It is a very well usable machine again with this new, up-to-date software (couldn't do that with MacOS ;-) ) Anyway, there I am! And it is all because I became a member of this channel and you taught me this! Thank you very much for your magnificent lessons. You really know how to explain complicated things and make them accessible to everyone. Greetings from a Dutch fan!
When I first used Linux, this used to confuse me, but it just becomes easy once you get over the obsession with drive letters C: you!
Very true. Indeed I now find drive information in Linux easier to understand than Windows as the information is laid out plainly in front of you with only one terminal command.
It's also a lot more flexible as a result. Having a storage drive that I dedicate to my media server mounted inside my home directory's video folder is so much more convenient than having to build an entirely new directory structure under a different drive letter
@@seto007 You can mount drives to folders on Windows for I don't know, like 20 years? There's no need to use drive letters at all. You can even mount UNC paths (network shares) to folders and present them like regular folders on your regular local drive. Windows is very flexible in this regard, much more than Linux is. I would love to see Linux handling network / UNC paths like this, unfortunately it does not. It also does not allow me to mount anything in some kind of "This PC" view, which is what the drive letter abstraction makes possible.
All in all, flexibility is on the Windows side of things, if you know your business.
EDIT: No need for drive letters is what I said, that's true, but you need C:\ at least for Windows itself, but you still can mount C:\ to any folder as well.
@@ytbone9430 Yes.
*One command on linux* or:
1. In the search box on the taskbar, enter Computer Management, and select Disk Management.
2. Choose the partition or volume that has the folder you want to mount the drive.
3. Go to Action > All Tasks > Change Drive Letter and Paths, then choose Add.
4. Select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder option.
5. Select the Browse button to locate the folder.
6. After you select the folder, choose select OK.
7. Select OK in the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog box to finish.
So yes, absolutely you _can_ do that.
Calling windows "flexible" in the same sentence as linux is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in a looooong time.
Do you work for them? Are you getting payed to spread disinformation?
@@ytbone9430 What about when you run out of drive letters, like I have in Windows?
While working at Free Geek here in Toronto (A social enterprise refurbishing and redeploying computers to low-income clients and other social agencies.) We developed a standard installation procedure for desktops and laptops for Linux. As part of that we partitioned the drives so that there was a partition for the OS and temp files and then there was a second partition for user data. That way if the clients messed up their system, we could quickly restore it and their data was kept safe.
I just checked out your website, very impressive focus and values! We have a similar service in Kitchener, dealing with the same demographic. We also have an organization, with a much larger mandate, including refurbishing bicycles, etc.
@ I’m actually looking for someone to help me get a small server (hp DL 60 G9) up and running g with Ubuntu server and update its firmware (I have the firmware image). Then configure it as a home lab. I had RHEL developer's edition but have been locked out since the licence expired.
As Johnny Carson once said".....I......I did not know that". That's explaining computers! Thanks Chris. I'm gonna have to watch that again.
This video is very helpful. Recently switched one of my Windows 10 laptops over to Ubuntu 24.04 and I’m impressed with it. This video answered a few questions I was curious about. As always, looking forward to your next video!
Greetings Perry! :)
@@ExplainingComputersalways an honor to be greeted by you. Wishing you a great day!
Very helpful. I wish I watched you when I was first learning how to use the root, directories, and partitions. I so wish that more Teachers taught like you. You make it less intimidating.
Blessed Sunday greetings all!
Hi!
@@Praxibetel-Ix Hello from the other end of the universe!
Back at U!
Greetings!
To you as well :)
It's amazing how many new things I learn from your videos. Your attention to detail is unmatched!
Thank you, Mr Christopher!
Thanks. :)
I liked this video a lot. I keep my home directory on a seperate hard drive. This is absolute paradise. All of my personal files are in home, and all of my software and data are all in flatpaks also in my home sirectory.
Solid tactics for distro-hopping and easy recovery if your OS is destroyed.
Excellent strategy ... I remember when I learnt this trick many years ago. As mentioned by @smile768 it made life a LOT easier for me back then, when I was a chronic disto-hopper. Now that I have settled down, yes it's solid advice for OS recovery, as well as general file management =)
I really like the style of your video. It is the "Anti"-Style for todays tutorial: You are patient and explain stuff in detail. Other tutorials often are fast cut, fast spoken and hard to follow the content and focus more on presentation than on content.
Great video for explaining stuff I've used years but never thought about (like the naming conventions)
Forgotten a lot over 43 years of IT and was having trouble setting up mint on an external hdd and you cleared that up for me. I'm getting old!
Sunday morning coffee and Linux partitions; perfect! 👍
Never let programmers specify a user interface, lest sometimes things start enumerating with 0 while at other times things start enumerating with 1.
A wise comment.
I'm glad I was the 1st to comment on this 😁
I can deal with that start counting from 0 vs 1, but what I find really frustrating on Linux is the fact, that these device ids or numbers change, if you add / remove devices. /dev/sda is "sda", even though it is connected to the second SATA port. If you connect something to the first SATA port, "sda" becomes "sdb" and you have a new "sda", what are the Linux developers smokling? The same happens for network card interfaces if you add / remove them, which screws up the machine, just like the enumeration changes if you add any drive .
It's bad, you can like Linux how much you want, this is just bad. Not booting into the OS if one of the drives referenced in fstab is missing is also bad, at least if there is no option to just ignore missing devices and keep booting into a working system. A Linux desktop is like lipstick on a pig.. oink oink! o))
@@Jeff121456 You mean the 0th?
@@ytbone9430 it's always enumerating on the first device plugged in, that is how it is made, or else USB hubs will seriously confuse the system, if you do want it to have a specific numbering per port then you just need to set that up in udev
Partitioning is one of the most weirdest things I encountered as a new user, and there was so much conflicting info. Take swap sizes, like I found info saying it should be 10 times your ram then people told me that is severely outdated. I was unsure if I HAD to have a home partition, but I realized I could just use subvolumes with btrfs. I eventually settled on this: I only have swap space thats the same as my ram for hibernation, boot partition is 512mb and the rest is root partition with subvolumes. This is not super secure, ideally you should have a home partition that's encrypted. But I dont switch distros enough nor do I care enough to have a home partition personally.
I've been using Linux for many years, but was never comfortable with the Linux drive terminology...
Thanks for clearing things up for me..!
I'm a Raspberry Pi guy so not a big leap for me BUT I'm teaching my family and 76yo Dad how to switch because as a family we our boycotting Windows. This series is just what we need. Make Open Source Great Again! MOSGA!
Hey Chris. Thank you for a very informative video, on what is becoming more and more important: Linux! I hope you will indeed keep producing useful and relevant videos on using Linux. I know there are many UA-cam videos on the subject, but your videos always get to the heart of a subject, without a lot of unnecessary distractions. Thanks for all your hard work! Take Good Care!
Thanks
Thanks for your support, appreciated. :)
This series is such a great idea!
I dislike the Microsoft strategy with Windows 11.
All you need is Linux Mint, Wine, and Proton.
Yet another super informative video by ExplainingComputers
Loving Linux
Thanks for your support. :)
Another great video. I’ve picked up some of the information along the way with brute force and ignorance, but this video has really helped me to see the actual layout and how things are organized. Thank you very much!
Thank you Chris. As always, you did an excellent job of explaining followed up with examples. What surprised me the most was the Disks application. The mount/unmount button and gear icon. Very exciting and will be helpful for me going forward. Cheers.
Very nice. This may help adopters to easily do their first steps in LINUX.
I switched to linux in 1996 or 1997, I can't remember precisely when, but it was pretty primitive then. Fortunately, I knew people who were familiar with linux to guide me. Your guides serve that purpose very well.
Excellent video, enjoyed it a lot. I learned quite a bit....
This could be a series. You could probably cover a whole lot of topics on this....
Thank you for your time;
Monte
Thanks for this. I may indeed make some more "Switching to Linux: #####" videos. :)
Well done AGAIN Chris, entertainingly presented at exactly the right level AGAIN for me and I'm sure others. I've tried Linux a few times over the last 25+ years but always came back to Windows, but with Mint 22 and your expert guidance I'm quite confident the next move will be permanent (well including wine ..). My one disappointment is that "Boulder Dash" doesn't seem to be still available. Really appreciate your excellent work Chris.
It took me 44 years to get used to DOS and Windows ...and now you get this.
:)
This video was very good. Well organized and very well presented. Thank you!
fun sunday , great video !!
Thanks Chris for your easy to follow Linux storage systems. It makes me wish they had Linux computer classes down at my local community college.
Good to see a shout out for Stanley the knife and Mr Scissors…👍😀!
Have a great week!
Great video as usual Chris! I think we'll be seeing many more people switch to Linux soon.
FYI: All Unix-like operating systems such as BSD and even MacOS largely function as described in this video. Windows with its legacy drive letters, is the outlier.
"and even MacOS"
Great explanation of the storage devices in Linux! Been using Linux since the early late 90's when I would have to compile the kernel to get my modem to work and couldn't have done as good a job going through all the naming schemes Linux has for devices.
Thanks for the video Chris, you provided a very clear explanation for folks new to this. 30 year Linux veteran here. 👍
Thanks for this very helpful video Chris. As usual your clear descriptions and explanations of how things work have been a huge help.
Exciting option. (My main OS is Linux mint 22.) I recently helped a friend install linux mint 21.3 into his Mac 2009 laptop. His laptop hasn't been able to update the apple OS for many years and he has felt the pressure to buy a brand new apple laptop. He has felt that apple is too proprietary anyway and wanted a complete switch. His main interests are programming and music. His laptop runs very well now with linux and although the video must run at 720p (but very smoothly) in every other way his laptop feels like a brand new machine. Codeblocks runs excellently and rythumbox has replaced iTunes. Thus he has kept his machine from the landfill.
Hi. Wow. I have just got a laptop with Ubuntu.
Big thanks.
Seeing this. Make me go back so many years ago in dos 1. 2 and so on. Why, you say. Well i am now 71. Feb i will be 72.
And have gone back to my early days at looking at Linux.
Good old days. Just a few lesson's 😊
I am now enjoying learning again so to speak.
A bit easy second time around.
Marking these as my new lesson's. 😊😊😊😊😊
Thanks for putting this together and sharing. Really useful, didn't know about the lsblk. Looking forward to the more comprehensive video. Chris, if you able to break it into 'chunks' that are sort of organic or say build on each other, I personally have found these easier to understand but I'll go with the flow as what you post is always helpful
Am repeating myself: One of the best channels to learn about Linux.
Keep going! I need to learn a lot more. :)
more on this subject please. 1. setting up and creating permanent mount point and permissions. 2. access mounted drives from other devices (Windows, Linux, Apple, etc.). 3. accessing other devices (NAS drives, Windows computers, etc. as permanent mounts) ... local network accessibility. This would be very helpful.
Thanks Chris, I'm sure this video will be invaluable to those trying out Linux in the coming year! Also, thought you might be interested to know that we have a fantastic Computing Museum over here in Derby. It might possibly make for good content in a field trip video?
That is one of the best explanations of the typical Linux drive and directory system that I have seen. Very clear, and nice that you didn't just dumb things down and breeze right past block storage devices like most "explainers". And yeah "disks" is very nice. I use it instead of dd whenever I can, because it is so convenient and intuitive. To use dd you have to always be reading the man file or the help file or remember a few dozen options, and they don't call it "disk destroyer" for nothing. dd is crazy powerful but disks will do nearly any disk mangement task you would ever need.
Four suggestions for future videos:
Low level incremental backup with a shell script that calls rsync. Dead easy once you have the script set up, and you can even let it run automatically with cron though myself I prefer to initiate it manually. Most backup utilities make too many decisions "for your own good, you simple minded user, you" and don't back up stuff you actually should back up, and waste space backing up stuff you probably already have on another drive anyway, such as movies or music. Plus you can do incremental backups instead of full or selective backups, so daily backups don't fill up a 4TB USB drive every third or 4th day. This to me is the ultimate backup system. Yeah I do a daily backup. It's the right thing to do.
Initial partition setup for a first time Linux installer. The default in many distros is to put everything on one big partition. At the very least, the new Linux user should right away be in the habit of creating a separate partition for /home so he can do a system delete and re-install and not lose all his personal files.
An explanation of the terminal. I differ with you on this, you really can't use linux to its full potential without using terminal. More important than trying to list every single command or operator, would be listing a few ways to get help and solve a problem as it happens instead of trying to already know everything before something happens or needs to be done. However, a good explanation of the use of python in the terminal would be nice. I always have a terminal window open in the python envorinment, and I always have the math library imported. It is like the world's best calculator.
I forgot the fourth one already but I know you will think of it.
A few years ago, only the called, the chosen, the zealots went around telling people that they MUST move to a grownup operating system. It was a way for the fringe kooks to validate their own choices, and engage in a bit of elitism. Now, with WinDOHs getting suckier and suckier, regular folks are suggesting a move to a fairly user friendly distro like Ubuntu, Mint, or their daddy, Debian.
Again, well done, nice video.
This was an EXCELLENT video Mr B. Lots of great info for we challenged Linux underlings. Have a great day Chris!!!
Very nice overview of the Linux filesystems and device management -- hopefully this works to clarify for Windows users Linux's somewhat more advanced method of dealing with storage!
I've just been playing with Win11, I can see many people switching to linux!
I like the link you made there!
Thank you sir! Perfect video as always! Greetings from Greece!
Great explanation. I use Windows at work but I've been using Ubuntu as my daily computer for 5 years now. I support FOSS but my main reason for switching was less ideological and more practical, as my prior computer with Windows 10 became unusable with constant crashes and seemingly endless updates at the worst times. Linux supports live patches so most updates don't even require a reboot, and it's entirely within your control when to update, what to update, or even whether to update at all (at your own peril of deferred security patches, of course).
As for the version, I recommend Mint for casual users and Ubuntu for people a little more comfortable with computers in general and breaking with the familiar desktop layout in particular. I've heard that Ubuntu 24.04 is buggy (still on 22.04 myself), so I might not get the newest version. Also, exactly as he said, the command is not necessary at all. I've been accustomed to using it, just because there are so many things that are so much easier to do by just copying and pasting some commands (provided of course you have at least an idea of what you're doing). But 99% of people could use Linux their entire lives just fine without touching the command line, same as Windows.
One thing that confused me when I started using Linux (about 30 years ago!) was the idea of the root partition / and the root directory /root - we needed Explaining Computers back then!
This is great stuff and warrats a few views to absorb it all. Tinkering with Mint, so this has cleared up a lot of potential confusion without me having to do lots of reading. Looking forward to the drives/devices etc outing.
Thank you for your effort once again. I have experimented with Linux before but your content will definitely come in handy when I officially make the switch. 🏆
Great explanation, Chris. Thanks. Always good to have a better understanding of the building blocks of our OS.
What a wonderful series, please keep working on them as they are tremenduse help for thoes who can no longer tolorate the non sense microsoft is doing.
Much love.
I'm pleased to see this channel rolling out more Linux jazz. I am currently dual booting, trying to decide on what distro to settle on. I enjoy Mint but not sure about it's direction with wayland. Zorin, Arch, & Fedora also in the running.
I too worry and wonder what Mint will do with Wayland.
This specific content and this channel is priceless. Thank you.
"If you don't know exactly what you're doing, be very careful indeed when using Disks...." I'm happy to accept that advice!
Actually, after fooling around with (and using, to some degree) Linux for about 3 years, I've absorbed very little about Linex file system, partitions, etc. I know what to do when, say, wanting to install a distro in a partition I create...but NOT because I actually grasp it but, rather, because I've simply learned the steps. I've decided that, for me, trying to understand Linux drives and partitions is about as hopeless as my trying to understand the Circle of Fifths! 😑
Really clear explanation. My students would likely wrap their heads around this than some of the formal training materials I have access to.
In my sky, you are way brighter than Sirius.
Wow Chris, great video! I thought you were going to explain how to install Linux from scratch. I originally tried to install Redhat linux a LONG time ago, but got stumped when it asked me to set up the various partitions, as well as how big they should be. Kind of scared me off of Linux for a while :)
Excellent stuff once again. Clear and concise.
Great explanation on storage!….turned on a “EUREKA” MOMENT FOR ME!!!
Thanks Chris!
Sunday greetings.
Once again, it's the best tutorial video by learned Christopher B.
been running Linux for decades. I still learned something I did not know. Thanks again! :) Disappointed that Stanley T.K. does not have his own file. :)
After experimenting with Windows and Linux distro-hopping finaly i found peace in macOS, iOS. But i still watch this channel for about some news like Raspberry Pi, ssds, Flash drives etc. Only Rpi5 home server/router keeps me to keep eye on those Linux news. Thanks for video
Luckily I learned Unix before being indoctrinated into the world of DOS/Windows, so this was old hat for me, but always a welcome refresher of the basics. I've mostly stuck to the command line for system interaction, so I was glad you showed the GUI versions.
Thank you for this. It greatly assists in my present transition from WIN10 to Mint. Please add a video on the use of DD command and/or the use of a "rescue" USB and a further video on Syncthing or similar program to migrate data from a WIN10 device to a Linux device. Every time I hit a problem EC delivers a video which explains the predicament with great clarity. Thank you for all of your work. Greatly appreciated.
Thank you for the easy to understand Linux drive information.
This will help the next time I put WINE onto a Linux distro and try audio ripping through WINE, I hope. Good job!
I installed Exact Audio Copy using Wine and it worked like a charm for me.
@@Praxibetel-Ix Using DbPowerAMP Audio CD Ripper here. Guess I should check EAC too.
@@Praxibetel-Ix I explored EAC this week, and it felt like I had regressed to the 20th century.
Why using wine and a windows app ? Install asunder, that will also do the job just fine.
@@essetee Yes, but I need that AccurateRIP option.
Thank you for this video it has really helped me! I am planing on switching to Linux when Windows 10 support ends. I have always used Windows and have no experience with Linux. I've watched you video on ZorinOS and I am planing to switch to that. Thanks again....I only have a few months left to learn everything :)
Good luck! Zorin OS is a great distro to transition to.
When I switched from OS/2 Warp 4.5 to Mandrake Linux I was a bit confused at first but soon got used to the drive layout. I could never go back to the MS-DOS file system format! Now a C: drive is a trip to the beach! 🤣 I'm also used to having a minimum of three partitions on my boot drive, I always put /home on a separate partition, it makes reinstalling much easier.
Love the c: drive line! :)
Looking forward to your next video.
Thanks! Big things going on here next Sunday . . .
Very timely! My computer updated and decided to have no icons so I'm trying to move back over to Linux. Videos are great as always Christopher thank you!
Thanks. Having first used unix in the early 1980s I've no problem with devices, mount points and directories. But I'll be amazed if you manage to give as clear an explanation as today for using the Linux Volume Manager and all its associated commands. (Although I'll not be surprised if you don't try on the grounds that it isn't the most Algorithm pleasing topic.)
Good Morning from Arizona.
Good morning from, well, my chair!
Greetings from the UK!
This is a useful terminology introduction for devices with media in place. Another video for removable media drives, and how to use them interactively would be appreciated. I'm thinking about terminal commands to do things, but GUIs are good, too.
This is the perfect explainer video for this topic, well laid out and easy to follow. It makes me think how I actually prefer the way Linux handles this, especially for how it communicates to the user in the GUI. I never liked the drive letter thing Windows did it can lead to confusion with less knowledgeable users especially if they try and set up shortcuts to files on external drives etc and the drive letter changed because of plugging in a usb disk or whatever. That said it's a bit more involved to make drives automount at startup in Linux.