OS habits?

[Flame]

"1TB" - LMFAO.

Separating OS from data via partitions is the oldest common sense in the book because something will, at some point, go horribly wrong and windows will have to get nuked.

Now, WTFFFFF are "portable apps" on a full-fledged OS, my guy??

The 1TB was just an example. I have maybe about 70TB of drives, including the different laptops and setups.

As @Latiodile said, it doesn't edit the registry and keeps the OS more clean. it's not perfect, of course. But that's what this thread is about, habits which we might have, to learn from one another.

 

[The Catboy]

I learned the hard way to keep my root / partition and /home partitions separate if I'm going to be reinstalling the same Linux OS on the drive, as this keeps my config files and personal user files during a reinstall. Mint likes to shit itself sometimes, especially when using proprietary Linux drivers.

I have not dug deeper into this since settling on BazziteOS as my main but I haven’t encountered this problem with Bazzite/Fedora using btrfs

 

[KleinesSinchen]

OS or computer habits… okay:

Random bits and pieces:
Full disk encryption with strong diceware passphrase since 2006. Planning additional layer of file system based encryption for protecting home directory while system is on, but user not logged in. Not trusting TPM for keeping the master key safe.
I have root/home partition separate but to be honest I almost never reinstall my OS on main PC. It just works.
Ethernet over WiFi whenever possible.
On Windows machines enabling Windows Defender anti-ransomware function and using the group policy editor to adjust a few things that can't be done on the normal user interface
Running as few server programs allowing external connection. Main PC has SSH and Samba while I'm considering getting rid of Samba.


Compartmentalization:

• No admin/root rights available in standard user accounts, dedicated maintenance account
• Running as little software as possible bare metal and moving everything into VMs
  • Each persona (or type of task) a dedicated VM
  • Optionally using immutable virtual HDDs for everyday usage
  • Most complete approach for compartmentalization is Qubes OS → This isolates pretty much everything
  • No unknown software bare metal at all! Apps aren't Pokémon: You do not have to catch them all
• Multiple browsers and multiple browser profiles
• No video games and no tinkering on important PCs
  • → Different physical PCs for different tasks

Backup strategy:

• Automatic backup of home directory every few hours to external HDD (multiple snapshots kept)
• Manual full backup every few weeks to one of multiple external HDDs stored in fire and water resistant container
• Most important data mirrored to multiple online storage (using VeraCrypt and gocryptfs for encryption before upload)
• Static data burned to encrypted BD-R including self-made md5sum verification script

Not really OS related, but planned to improve security:

• Locking PCs and peripherals and sealing parts using tamper evident to make unnoticed local attacks (Evil Maid) harder
  • Set strong UEFI password

 

[RandomUser]

I use SoftPerfect RAMDisk as well, now that I have a full 64GB of RAM. I keep Photoshop Portable installed on it's own RAMDisk, so it loads faster (under 10 seconds.)

Awesome, another SoftPerfect user! Yes, that's seem way faster then SSD, imagine experiencing PCIE-5 or 6 speed before PCIE-5 or 6 SSD existed with a bonus of reducing the SSD wear and tear. 64GB of RAM is quite good amount of memory, in fact, you should be able to run the entire Windows OS in RAM and still have room for a second RAMdisk while leaving the rest for normal RAM usage. All you would need is a 25GB RAMdisk for the OS, using a 25GB VHD file.
If you're interested, a driver called svbus and a github of the same driver. Sadly the driver seems to have cease development, and don't know if it will work in Windows 11, but according to the site, it does. The downside, this driver is slow and is slower then SSD, but with the combination of SoftPerfect RAMDisk, I think makes up for it. Keep in mind that I find that after around 6 month, explorer.exe, the icons near the clock seems wonky and don't know why it does that. You can simply boot into VHD as file disk and restart as RAMdisk and that seems to solve the issue, or task kill explorer.exe and then relaunch it.

Edit:
You may even be able to go lower for RAMdisk space for the OS.

 

[Jayro]

Awesome, another SoftPerfect user! Yes, that's seem way faster then SSD, imagine experiencing PCIE-5 or 6 speed before PCIE-5 or 6 SSD existed with a bonus of reducing the SSD wear and tear. 64GB of RAM is quite good amount of memory, in fact, you should be able to run the entire Windows OS in RAM and still have room for a second RAMdisk while leaving the rest for normal RAM usage. All you would need is a 25GB RAMdisk for the OS, using a 25GB VHD file.
If you're interested, a driver called svbus and a github of the same driver. Sadly the driver seems to have cease development, and don't know if it will work in Windows 11, but according to the site, it does. The downside, this driver is slow and is slower then SSD, but with the combination of SoftPerfect RAMDisk, I think makes up for it. Keep in mind that I find that after around 6 month, explorer.exe, the icons near the clock seems wonky and don't know why it does that. You can simply boot into VHD as file disk and restart as RAMdisk and that seems to solve the issue, or task kill explorer.exe and then relaunch it.

Edit:
You may even be able to go lower for RAMdisk space for the OS.

I'm crazy, but not "run my entire Windows OS off a RAMDisk" crazy.

 

[bonkmaykr]

I have a completely custom bootloader setup, replaced GRUB with Refind by hand and rewrote the config to use the correct boot params because GRUB's module loading thing was a pain in the ass trying to get it to work with my signatures (my kernels are on the main partition so they aren't choked by my ESP size, it needs special filesystem drivers to work). In the process I may have softbricked my PC once and taught myself how to write EFI shell scripts to rescue myself, now I have a convenient boot script I use to raw dog things incase something goes wrong All of this to get secure boot working, not that I ever even needed it.

But I learned a lot in the process of doing this and I have a helpful fallback incase my dual-boot Windows install nukes my EFI setup for no reason.

I'm at that point as a Linux user where no problem scares me anymore and I just do curious things to my computer because it sounds funny or weird.

 

[XFoxPrower]

Back when I had a PC, I'd image the storage after setup. Activation (Win7) done, ready for 1st boot. And 20s recovery via tools bootable from network or my PSP (USB with Acronis).

 

[Sicklyboy]

Well a new "habit" I guess is that I've fully converted to running my desktop as a VM on my desktop PC, with Proxmox running as the hypervisor OS installed on bare metal.

Then I can easily switch between any number of OSes I want, and set new OSes up in the background via the web KVM until I'm ready to boot into the new VM with the GPU passthrough. It's like dual booting with extra steps and extra drawbacks.

 

[Jayro]

No matter the distro or desktop environment used, I like my OS's "menu button" to be in the bottom left, all thanks to Windows 95. (Windows 11 sucks with it in the center by default.)

When I install Linux on a fresh drive, I keep my /home on a separate partition in case I have to reinstall the OS later. That way all my config files are still there and working after a reinstall.

I also manually assign a separate drive just for caching stuff like pagefile.sys, Linux's /SWAP partition (or swap file), Photoshop cache, etc... Usually a dedicated SSD that I don't care if it gets thrashed for caching purposes to keep my other drives fast and clean. I always use cheap (or free) SATA SSDs I get for this.

 

[Taleweaver]

What I do?

I keep the fucker updated. If you think that's common practice, you haven't seen the average pc user.

Anyhow... No re-used passwords, which I admit is pretty clunky considering how many passwords I've got. But other than that: mint with time machine or windows 10/11 with bitlocker. Preference to the former, but as pc support I can't affort my windows skills going rusty.
My main pc's also run a keyboard shortcut program (mostly executor). It's convenient, but probably the opposite of safe.

I have a Nas to backup everything to, but in practice it's often backup on an usb drive and the nas backups that.

 

[Exnor]

I keep the OS on a dedicated drive whenever I can, imaging that disk for backup.

This is the way.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

"1TB" - LMFAO.

Separating OS from data via partitions is the oldest common sense in the book because something will, at some point, go horribly wrong and windows will have to get nuked.

Now, WTFFFFF are "portable apps" on a full-fledged OS, my guy??

Reinstalling Windows doesn't require formatting the partition. The only time you have to do that is if the drive dies.

No matter how much you try to keep things separated, games will just throw their save data wherever they want. So really you have to make backups before formatting regardless.

 

[Jayro]

Now, WTFFFFF are "portable apps" on a full-fledged OS, my guy??

I install as many apps as I can in Portable mode, to help keep my registry clean and uncluttered, as well as not have a ton of software hooked into my Windows installation overall, keeping my system clean and snappy. I run my portable installation of Photoshop from an 8GB RAMdisk. (I have 64GB of RAM, I can spare 8GB.) It loads in under 6 seconds, from launch to usable. The fully-installed version can't do that. Not even close. So being portable has it's advantages too.

 

[Skv0ra]

I install as many apps as I can in Portable mode, to help keep my registry clean and uncluttered, as well as not have a ton of software hooked into my Windows installation overall, keeping my system clean and snappy. I run my portable installation of Photoshop from an 8GB RAMdisk. (I have 64GB of RAM, I can spare 8GB.) It loads in under 6 seconds, from launch to usable. The fully-installed version can't do that. Not even close. So being portable has it's advantages too.

I know, that was sarcasm and a thread of it so since back in the day you had to actually programs the grams to work from ground up vs being jpegs attached to website links they were prior to web code getting reaponsive to what shit rez is viewing them in and auto adjusting sans now now personal data sales via cookies.

 

[Gemdation]

One of the first things I do set up my keybinds:

Every system:

Windows key + E - Close window
Windows key + W - Window switcher
Windows key + Q - Task Manager (or an equivalent)
Windows key + G - Maximize window

For some systems exclusively:

Linux Mint (GNOME):
Scroll Lock key - Lock
Right-click menu key - Show all apps
Windows key + R - Run prompt
Windows key + End - Force stop GNOME Shell
Windows key + V - Clipboard menu

Windows:
Right-click menu key - Xbox Game Bar