I’m using EndeavourOS with ext4 file system for daily usage and a dual bootable Windows for gaming. What I want to have right now is getting rid of Windows completely.

When I tried it before, I had to try multiple tweaks for a game and find which one worked on Linux. Therefore, I want to take a snapshot with BTRFS and try it until I find the right configuration.

While I have quite a bit of experience with Linux, I’ve never used BTRFS. Do you think it’s worth it?

I thought about keeping the games on the ext4 system, but I hate splitting the disk. I’m thinking of keeping the games in a non-snapshot volume.

UPDATE: I just re-installed EndeavourOS with BTRFS + snapper + BTRFS Assistant :)

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
    3·
    2 months ago

    I found that copying directories was much more convenient for this kind of experimentation, since I was usually already working in a filemanager anyways. And thanks to BTRFS’s copy-on-write support it was also instantaneous and didn’t take up any additional space. So in the end very similar to snapshots.

  • Lojcs@lemm.ee
    2·
    2 months ago

    Just put steam on a different subvolume, otherwise your snapshots will be huge

    Edit: to be clear, you can just put steamapps in a different subvolume keep the proton / save data folders in the snapshot area

    • iso@lemy.lolOP
      0·
      2 months ago

      Cool! Thats what I wanted to hear coz I want to do the same :)

      • aleph@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Since you’re on EndeavourOS, I suggest using btrfs-assistant instead of timeshift, since it was created by one of the devs and offers more functionality with snapper. Just create a new profile for your root partition and then configure how often you want it to take snapshots.

        You can also install snap-pac so that you get OpenSUSE-like automatic snapshots everytime pacman executes a install/remove/update command.

  • ogeist@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    What do you mean splitting the disk? I just recently removed windows, moved and resized both boot and primary partition to take over all the space, now it is a pure Ext4 disk. I would not use BTRFS for your use case but that is up to you.

    • iso@lemy.lolOP
      0·
      2 months ago

      I meant using BTRFS for system and ext4 for the game folder. Why you wouldn’t use BTRFS though?

      • ogeist@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        I saw the other comments, BTRFS appears to work fine, I wouldn’t use it because it is unfinished (there are some features not ready according to the status page) but I guess it is stable.

        • soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          2 months ago

          The main issue with btrfs is the RAID 5/6 write hole. If you aren’t planning to use RAID 5/6, it’s fine.

          There are some other problems too, but those don’t affect data integrity. The most annoying one currently is that defragmenting breaks reflinks, such that snapshots get turned into full copies, potentially wasting a lot of space. (I have honestly no idea how noticeable fragmentation is on SSDs, and if defragmenting is even worth it nowadays.)

  • ashaman2007@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    I use openSUSE Tumbleweed and it has BTRFS and snapper (snapshot manager) set up by default, with all necessary system subvolumes already created. It’s been a great experience for gaming so far, and actually the best experience with NVIDIA drivers I’ve had! All you would need to do is create a separate BTRFS subvolume and snapper config for your games folder and you’d be good to go, without worrying about any other setup! No need to use EXT4 at all. Additionally, there is very detailed snapper documentation on the openSUSE website.

    https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/archive/15.0/reference/html/book.opensuse.reference/cha.snapper.html#id-1.4.3.4.2.2

    Additionally, you can get support from the community in the openSUSE Matrix Space: https://matrix.to/#/%23space:opensuse.org

    Use the support channel (#support:opensuse.org) or the gaming channel (#gaming:opensuse.org)