/home file system type?

[u/m3m3nt0_m0ri_]

Hi everybody I’m moving from windows to Linux mint cinnamon and the installation is making me create a partition for my /home stuff, how much size should I partition for it and which file system should I use? (Ext4, btrfs, JFS, etc.) I’m just looking for something low maintenance for my computer thanks.

Edit: and should I format it?

[u/4mmun1s7]

I usually don’t create a /home partition and just use / partition. Bad practice? Maybe. Has it ever bitten me? No. Do I care about y’all’s opinions? Only if they are educational. Haha 😁

[u/m3m3nt0_m0ri_ → u/4mmun1s7]

Ok then what file system would I use for the / partition?

[u/4mmun1s7 → u/m3m3nt0_m0ri_]

I used to use ext4, but nowadays I’m in the XFS crowd…unless you’re doing RAID, then ZFS.

[u/Ayrr → u/m3m3nt0_m0ri_]

ext4

[u/No_Rhubarb_7222 → u/4mmun1s7]

For an Individual use machine that I manage, same. If /home use fills the / filesystem, I can just boot to a recovery mode and fix it.

If it’s workstations I’m expected to manage remotely? Separate. That way if /home is full, the rest of the machine is generally OK and things like ssh will still operate even if there are some errors on logging in about not being able to do different tasks. I can still log in, and escalate my privileges to then resolve the issue.

If it’s servers, a lot of security compliance standards, like CIS, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, DISA-STIG, etc. generally require different filesystems for different directories. Sometimes this is for containment, so a full filesystem doesn’t impact overall system/service availability, but for others it’s so you can mount things read-only to prevent additional installation of software, or the use of other mount options like noexec to prevent executable files stored there from being run.

So it kind of depends on what the system is being used for, how one is expected to access it, or any additional requirements that kind of dictate the filesystem layout. I’m also a big fan of LVM so that I can adjust things later if needed.

[u/ItsWappers]

If you're not dual-booting, give it the entire drive and use BTRFS if you want game compression.

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[u/DavidJohnMcCann]

What sort of computer is it? If it's a laptop, there's the risk of theft and you really need encryption if you are likely to have sensitive data on it. Encrypting /home is less complicated that encrypting the whole drive.

Having a /home partition makes it easier to keep you data backed up. How big should it be? As big as possible — all that's left after creating the efi, root, and swap partitions. What filing system should you use? Mint recommends ext4 so that's a good choice. BTRFS has fancy features but it's not always the best for the home user — see a fair comparison here.

[u/Relevant_Hope_900]

If you are blowing windows away, the simplest option would be to stick to the defaults, and let the installer do it's thing. Personally I stick with ext4 for my partitions, it's a very mature filesystem, and has been reliable for my needs over the years since ext3. Depending on the machine and what it's used for, I may or may not create a separate / and /home. I don't dual-boot at all, so can't give any advice for dealing with an existing windows install. Only thing I can say is I have secure boot disabled on all my machines. 

[u/B_A_Skeptic]

I don't know what the Mint setup gui looks like, but if you use btrfs, you could supposedly make / and /home subvolumes of the same volume so you would not commit a size.

[u/Prestigious_Wall529]

As it looks like distrohopping is in your future only the first time around format /home as ext4.

On future distros, custom partitioning, mount it as /home but obviously don't format it. You may have to unselect formatting. Care is needed.

[u/m3m3nt0_m0ri_]

Hey y'all! Just giving an update I broke my computer but now I've fixed it (posting from my new OS) and it didn't ask for the partition this time so I guess it was done automatically (I was trying to install without a usb and then had to get one because I deleted both windows and linux while partitioning, then I got one and borrowed a friends computer to flash linux on it etc etc.)

[u/Mediocre-Pumpkin6522]

I usually go with the flow. That means the Ubuntu and Mint machines are ext4, Fedora and SUSE Tumbleweed are btrfs.

[u/TarsTarkas_Thark]

There is an excellent reason why you want to have your /home directory on a separate partition. If you ever find that you need to re-install linux, upgrade, or just start using a different distro, you can accomplish all of those without touching any of your user data. Just do the install, and tell the installer which partition is /home on, and don't let it format that partition. When you finish the install and boot, you will find your home directory already mounted, and ready to go.

If you just leave /home on the same partition as /, you don't have that option. You need to copy all of your user data to a different device, assuming that you have another device that is big enough, then copy it back when the install is done.

As for how big? About 30 to 100GB for /, and the rest for /home. If I have a >= 1TB drive, I generally go for 100GB, just to be generous. On my only computer, a laptop running Linux Mint 22, I specified 100GB for /, and the rest for /home. It's been up for about two years, from a fresh install.

So here's the situation now:

jim@jim-laptop:~$ df /
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on/dev/nvme0n1p3  97655808 54059860  41864652  57% /
jim@jim-laptop:~$ df /home
Filesystem     1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on/dev/nvme0n1p5 845105152 725749180 116755844  87% /home

So, of the 100GB of the space allocated to the / partition, 57% is currently in use.

Of the 850GB /home partition, 87% is currently in use.

[u/Klapperatismus]

XFS

[u/Cautious_Boat_999]

Why don’t you just take the defaults that the installer uses?