New system, queries regarding graphics and filesystem

[Serenity]

After much procrastinating, I finally have a brand-new Broadwell-E i7 6850K system ready and waiting to replace my current eight year-old PC (which also uses Debian), but I have a few concerns about this new Debian install that I'd like to clear up before proceeding.

First is the graphics. I initially intended to use a GeForce GTX 980 in this system, but after advice from other users about the best price/power balance right now, I went with a GTX 1060 instead. This poses the small problem that Debian testing (which I intend to use with this system) does not currently have an Nvidia driver that supports this card. Fortunately the Debian experimental driver does and I have no qualms with using that for now. From what I understand this should not affect the graphical installer, which I presume uses VESA graphics and will still work, but I'll likely get dumped to a command-line (or maybe some fallback mode on KDE Plasma, which is the DE I intend on using) on the first boot after installation and will have to install the newer drivers from there. If my assumption on this are all correct then there should be no problems here since I'm up to that task, but I thought to ask in case I'm mistaken about something.

Second is filesystems. The big question I have is this: ext4 or Btrfs? I seem to recall from a recent Debian stable install on another system that ext4 remains the default, but is there any need to wait longer on Btrfs? I pretty much intend to stick with whatever filesystem I choose on install for the lifetime of this system (which I'm hoping will last several years) so if it's ext4 now, it's ext4 for a long time. I just don't trust filesystem conversion. It seems like a completely unnecessary risk. I currently use ext3 and it continues to serve me well, but Btrfs surely has many advantages?

Finally, on a related issue, the drives themselves. This new system has four: a 256GB Samsung SM951 SSD, a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, and two 4TB WD Black HDDs. The 256GB SSD is intended for the operating system and I assume Debian will have no problems installing there. My plan is to partition the drive so I have 128GB for the root partition and the other 128GB as swap space (which, given that the system has 32GB RAM, would give me a 4:1 ratio for swap space vs. RAM). One of the HDDs would become /home and the other two drives would be mounted elsewhere for additional storage. What I've read seems to indicate no problems with this plan but I keep getting conflicting information on whether SSDs are suited to the constant read/write that putting the swap space there would entail, so I wanted to ask first. I would have no problems simply putting the swap space on one of the HDDs but it seems logical to have it on the SSD if practical.

I am probably worrying myself over nothing, but this is the first all new install I've done for eight years and I'd like to get everything right from day one so my new system can serve me well for many years. Feel free to flag up any problems I've missed or any misconceptions I have, I'd rather know any of that now than find out halfway through installing. I really want this to all just go off without a hitch so I can get right down to the rather involved business of fine-tuning my new install to feel as comfortable as the one I'm using now.

[debiman]

I went with a GTX 1060 instead. This poses the small problem that Debian testing (which I intend to use with this system) does not currently have an Nvidia driver that supports this card. Fortunately the Debian experimental driver does and I have no qualms with using that for now.

Second is filesystems. The big question I have is this: ext4 or Btrfs? is there any need to wait longer on Btrfs?

well you already answered the question about the gpu driver.
i wouldn't have recommended that, but if it's ok for you...

is there some ongoing discussion to replace ext4 with btrfs for good?
i haven't heard about it, and i really don't see any reason to use anything but ext4 on a home install.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I have to say that I would be hesitant in recommending btrfs over ext4 in Debian jessie.

I am a big fan of btrfs and it's capabilities are amazingly useful but the kernel version used in jessie is pretty old now and btrfs-progs is only available from jessie-backports.

I use the backported kernel version and a rigorous backup regime (note that snapshots != backups) for my jessie system and even then I am probably taking unnecessary risks with the only practical salve being the easy undelete feature offered by the snapshots -- if I remember to take them...

[Serenity]

well you already answered the question about the gpu driver.
i wouldn't have recommended that, but if it's ok for you...

The GTX 1060 you mean? Well as I said I did consider the 980 but the primary reason to go with the 1060 was cost. I'd been hoping to keep the price of this new PC below £2000 but I eventually ended up over £2600 and had to go down from a GTX 1070 and 1TB SSD to a GTX 1060 and 500GB SSD just to get it down to £2400. Spending more for an inferior graphics card when I was already £400 overbudget seemed like lunacy, especially when the driver problem will go away by itself in a matter of weeks. Though I will admit I only thought about drivers after I'd already placed the order, and after looking at the current packages I was like "Well crap. That's going to be fun". But I still think I made the right call.

is there some ongoing discussion to replace ext4 with btrfs for good?
i haven't heard about it, and i really don't see any reason to use anything but ext4 on a home install.

I was under the impression that btrfs was designed to replace ext4 (which itself was intended as a stopgap until btrfs was finished) and given that it's been around for seven years now I was kind of amazed it hasn't become the default already, but the fact that it isn't did give me pause for thought. Also I've heard conflicting opinions on btrfs from those rubbishing the idea of it being anything other than stable to what you and Head_on_a_stick said. But given that there's still scepticism, I'll go with ext4 and probably stay with that for the next decade.

[Serenity]

Well the install went pretty much as expected. The installation was a bit of an ordeal and setting up the Nvidia driver was a lot of an ordeal, but I got out the other side. The biggest problems I'm left with right now are /mnt/data and /mnt/speedy (the second 4TB HDD and 500GB SSD respectively), I set them up with custom mount points and the Debian installer didn't know what I wanted done with them, so they've been set to the default of only root having read/write access. But of course I want my main user account to have read/write access. This should be fairly simple but an online search failed to produce a clear answer for this scenario so I decided to ask here because why not.

[debiman]

this is how i do it:
(part of /etc/fstab)

Code: Select all

UUID=nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn /home/data ext4 defaults,comment=x-gvfs-show 1 2

user has full access.