Installation guides

What you will learn

In these tutorials and videos I show my process to install and setup different Linux distributions on both desktop computers/laptops as well as on servers. My post installation steps are also covered, i.e. which settings I choose and which apps I install and use.

Installation guides

  • Pop!_OS: Things to do after installation (Apps, Settings, and Tweaks)

    In the following I will go through my post installation steps on Pop!_OS, i.e. which settings I choose and which apps I install and use.

  • Fedora Workstation: Things to do after installation (Apps, Settings, and Tweaks)

    In the following I will go through my post installation steps on Fedora, i.e. which settings I choose and which apps I install and use.

  • Ubuntu Desktop: Things to do after installation (Apps, Settings, and Tweaks)

    In the following I will go through my post installation steps on Ubuntu, i.e. which settings I choose and which apps I install and use.

  • Ubuntu Server Raspberry Pi: Things to do after installation (Apps, Settings, and Tweaks)

    In the following I will go through my post installation steps, i.e. which settings I choose and which apps and containers I install and use on my Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB)

  • DRAFT: Pop!_OS 21.10: installation guide with btrfs-LVM-luks and auto snapshots with BTRBK

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get a Pop!_OS 21.10 system with a luks-encrypted partition which contains a LVM with a logical volume for the root filesystem that is formatted with btrfs and contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to setup an encrypted swap partition which works with hibernation. This layout enables one to use BTRBK which will regularly take snapshots of the system and optionally on any apt operation. The recovery system of Pop!_OS is also installed to the disk and accessible via the systemd bootloader.

  • Pop!_OS 21.04: installation guide with btrfs-LVM-luks and auto-apt snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get a Pop!_OS 21.04 system with a luks-encrypted partition which contains a LVM with a logical volume for the root filesystem that is formatted with btrfs and contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to setup an encrypted swap partition which works with hibernation. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap-apt which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any apt operation. The recovery system of Pop!_OS is also installed to the disk and accessible via the systemd bootloader.

  • Pop!_OS 20.04: installation guide with btrfs-LVM-luks and auto-apt snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get a Pop!_OS 20.04 system with a luks-encrypted partition which contains a LVM with a logical volume for the root filesystem that is formatted with btrfs and contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to setup an encrypted swapfile. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap-apt which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any apt operation. The recovery system of Pop!_OS is also installed to the disk and accessible via the systemd bootloader.

  • Pop!_OS 20.04: installation guide with btrfs-LVM-luks-RAID1 and auto-apt snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get a Pop!_OS 20.04 system with a luks-encrypted partition which contains a LVM with a logical volume for the root filesystem that is formatted with btrfs and contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home. The system is set up in a RAID1 managed by the btrfs filesystem. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to setup encrypted swap partitions which work with hibernation. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap-apt which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any apt operation. The recovery system of Pop!_OS is also installed to both disks and accessible via the systemd bootloaders. Due to the RAID1 managed by btrfs you get redundancy of your data.

  • Ubuntu Server 20.10 on Raspberry Pi 4: installation guide with USB Boot (no SD card) and full disk encryption (excluding /boot) using btrfs-inside-luks and auto-apt snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get an Ubuntu 20.10 system with a luks-encrypted partition for the root filesystem (excluding /boot) formatted with btrfs that contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home running on a Raspberry Pi 4. The system is installed to an external bootable USB drive so no SD card is required. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to get a headless server, i.e. remotely unlock the luks partition using Dropbear which enables one to use SSH to decrypt the luks-encrypted partitions after a reboot. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap-apt which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any apt operation.

  • Ubuntu Desktop 20.04: installation guide with btrfs-luks full disk encryption including /boot and auto-apt snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get an Ubuntu 20.04 system with a luks-encrypted partition for the root filesystem (including /boot) formatted with btrfs that contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to add a key-file to type the luks passphrase only once for GRUB. I will also cover how to setup an encrypted swap partition or swapfile. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap-apt which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any apt operation. Moreover, using grub-btrfs all snapshots can be accessed and booted into from the GRUB menu.

  • Ubuntu Desktop 20.04: installation guide with btrfs-luks-RAID1 full disk encryption including /boot and auto-apt snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get an Ubuntu 20.04 system with a luks-encrypted partition for the root filesystem (including /boot) formatted with btrfs that contains a subvolume @ for / and a subvolume @home for /home. The system is set up in a RAID1 managed by the btrfs filesystem. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to add key-files to type the luks passphrase only once for each disk for GRUB. I will also cover how to setup encrypted swap partitions. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap-apt which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any apt operation. Moreover, using grub-btrfs all snapshots can be accessed and booted into from the GRUB menu. Due to the RAID1 managed by btrfs you get redundancy of your data.

  • Fedora Workstation 35 with automatic btrfs snapshots and backups using BTRBK

    Please feel free to raise any comments or issues on the website’s Github repository. Pull requests are very much appreciated. Overview Since Fedora switched their default filesystem to btrfs I decided to give it a go as I am exclusively using btrfs on all my systems, see: Why I (still) like btrfs.

  • Fedora Workstation 33: installation guide with btrfs-luks full disk encryption (optionally including /boot) and auto snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get a Fedora workstation 33 system with a luks-encrypted partition for the root filesystem (optionally including /boot) formatted with btrfs that contains (renamed) subvolumes @ and @home for / and /home, respectively. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and, in case /boot is on the encrypted partition, how to add a key-file to type the luks passphrase only once for GRUB. This layout enables one to use Timeshift which will regularly take snapshots of the system. Moreover, using grub-btrfs all snapshots can be accessed and booted into from the GRUB menu.

  • Manjaro Linux: installation guide with btrfs-luks full disk encryption including /boot and auto-snapshots with Timeshift

    In this guide I will walk you through the installation procedure to get a Manjaro system with a luks-encrypted partition for the root filesystem (including /boot) formatted with btrfs that contains a subvolume @ for /, a subvolume @home for /home and a subvolume @cache for /var/cache. I will show how to optimize the btrfs mount options and how to add a key-file to type the luks passphrase only once for GRUB. I will also cover how to setup an encrypted swap partition or swapfile. This layout enables one to use Timeshift and timeshift-autosnap which will regularly take snapshots of the system and particularly on any pacman operation. Moreover, using grub-btrfs all snapshots can be accessed and booted into from the GRUB menu.

Last updated on Aug 19, 2021