Advice on Setting up Tumbelweed on a new PC

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi I have been using TW for a while so reasonably up to speed on it but certainly not an expert like some on here. So just wanted to tap into some of that expertise before setting up TW on my new Mini PC.

Planning on doing an install on a separate M2 NVMe SSD to the one supplied with the PC that has Windows 11 on it.

The one I will be using currently has Windows on it too, but my plan is to reformat it & probably use btrfs for snapshots etc., although I gather ZFS might be a more reliable storage option or does that not work for snapshots? Any pluses & minuses of those?

For the boot partition I gather it is necessary to format a larger partition these days as maybe Systemd-boot is being used now or more in the future rather than Grub that I’m more familiar with. So I’m planning on making that 1gb to be on the safe side as I have a 1TB disk but I guess that might be overkill?

Will the latest installer / Systemd automatically find the Windows install or do I have to tick something along the way or maybe run some commands after?

It will have 32gb RAM which should be more than sufficient for my needs so do I need or want a swap partition or file perhaps of up to 32gb too?

Not sure about the motherboard / BIOS just yet as it hasn’t arrived but the processor is an AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS which I don’t think is that cutting edge so hopefully will be supported by now in TW. It comes with AMD Radeon 780M graphics. Hopefully that will all get picked up by the installer.

Sorry if these are stupid questions - but help or advice to get a good set up & avoid any problems in the future & with dual booting would be gratefully received.

Many Thanks in advance.

2

Many questions, so expect partial answers. BTW, no question is stupid but some answers are, occasionally.
Since you are planning on a separate disk, I don’t think that systemd-boot will see Windows on the other disk, you should be able to choose one or the other by the UEFI menu though; wait for more expert advice on that.

Re: swap space, you don’t need 32GB for sure, but some should be useful since the kernel scheduler is expecting some; say, 2GB or so are no waste of disk space and can prevent some out of memory errors allowing you to “gently” kill the offending application in extreme cases. Whether it should be a partition, a swap file or whatever is up to you.

Re: larger EFI partition please see also https://news.opensuse.org/2026/07/07/xbootldr/
But keep in mind that Win* use really small EFI partitions, so likely that one alone is not enough.

3

I’ve just been doing the same thing so from what I’ve gathered 1G is too small … I deleted the 1G /boot/efi partition and the 2G swap partition the installer recommended and made a new /boot/efi partition of 2G … I suspect I couldn’t make it 3G because I wasn’t able to resize the partitions (that I could see) to get 3G of contiguous free space so 2G is gonna have to do it (my first try). I only intend to have the current kernel and the previous one so I think I should be ok for now.

I use a btrfs swapfile with no separate partition at all … I make it the same size as my graphic card vram size … free indicates I barely even touch it regardless of size

My “test mule” board is currently a ryzen 7 7600 “raphael” … gigabyte boards can be flashed with Q-Flash just by hooking up 24 pin power and putting the latest bios on a USB in the proper port and pushing the button … no cpu or memory required … dunno if yours will. The latest TW snapshot detected everything just fine and I’m using it now

widowmaker:/usr/lib64 # inxi -GSaz
System:
  Kernel: 7.1.4-1-default arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.3.0
    clocksource: tsc avail: hpet,acpi_pm
    parameters: initrd=\opensuse-tumbleweed\7.1.4-1-default\initrd-00305d59abc2b09fad8058ef4fb5c7394c0c385d
    root=UUID=68d4ab48-4968-479b-a4d0-18b0b4550e83 mitigations=auto
    security=selinux selinux=1 rootflags=subvol=@/.snapshots/1/snapshot
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.7.3 tk: Qt v: N/A info: frameworks v: 6.28.0
    wm: kwin_x11 with: krunner tools: avail: xscreensaver vt: 2 dm: 1: LightDM
    v: 1.32.0 note: stopped 2: SDDM note: stopped Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed
    20260723
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Ti] vendor: EVGA driver: nvidia
    v: 595.84 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm non-free: 550-580.xx+ status: current
    (as of 2025-11; EOL~2026-12-xx) arch: Ampere code: GAxxx
    process: TSMC n7 (7nm) built: 2020-2023 pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 16 link-max: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s ports: active: none
    off: HDMI-A-1 empty: DP-1,DP-2,DP-3 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:2482
    class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.24 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.13
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: nvidia unloaded: modesetting,vesa
    alternate: fbdev,nouveau,nv gpu: nv_platform,nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch
    display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 30 s-size: 1626x914mm (64.02x35.98")
    s-diag: 1865mm (73.44")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-0 note: disabled
    model: Toshiba TOSHIBA-TV serial: <filter> built: 2012 res: mode: 1920x1080
    hz: 60 scale: 100% (1) dpi: 30 gamma: 1.2 size: 1600x900mm (62.99x35.43")
    diag: 1836mm (72.3") ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1920x1080 min: 640x480
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2
    drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11: drv: nvidia
    inactive: wayland,device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.6 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 595.84
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
    memory: 7.81 GiB
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.350 layers: 4 device: 0 type: discrete-gpu name: NVIDIA
    GeForce RTX 3070 Ti driver: nvidia v: 595.84 device-ID: 10de:2482
    surfaces: N/A device: 1 type: cpu name: llvmpipe (LLVM 22.1.8 256 bits)
    driver: mesa llvmpipe v: 26.1.5 (LLVM 22.1.8) device-ID: 10005:0000
    surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: kscreen-console,
    kscreen-doctor, xfce4-display-settings gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
widowmaker:/usr/lib64 #
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ZFS (or, better, openZFS) is not in the standard openSUSE kernel, so unless you are a developer or have specific reasons to use that, I would not incur the added hassles of using an out of tree filesystem, especially on Tumbleweed and especially for the /root partition. Please see https://en.opensuse.org/OpenZFS
But, of course, your system and so your choice.

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Thanks for taking the time to reply, not sure why such a large efi boot partition would be needed?

6

Thanks for taking the time, yes I think I am leaning towards btrfs as that the standard offering & I’m not that familiar with ZFS - just saw it suggested in the past.

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I may be mistaken but from what I’ve seen between kernels (2-4) and snapshots (?) it can fill up fast and the boot partition is not something you want to “fill up” … I prefer not to take chances

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Unlike grub2, systemd-boot stores and reads kernel and initramfs images directly from the /boot partition/directory. Thus the bare minimum is 1GB. Better 2-4GB to be prepared for the future. You will regret a to small boot patrtition later as it is nearly impossible to enlarge this partition later without alot of hassle.

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9

Thanks for the link you provided - the xbootldr thing looks like a potentially good work around to avoid problems, just not sure I understood the instructions they give to be confident on setting it up correctly.

10

Ah thanks - good to know, I’m guessing the systemd-boot is default now rather than Grub2.

11

Yes, that is correct.

12

As indicated that is indeed the default but that does not mean that you have to go with the default. The Tumbleweed installer allows you to change the choice and I did chose grub2 as I am happy with that. systemd-boot is not perfect.

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Ah thank you for the information that is good to know as I’m more familiar with Grub2 TBH.

I guess maybe to be on the safe side & for future proofing I could select Grub but format it in a large partition in case that is required down the line maybe by a change to Systemd-boot being forced in some future update perhaps or grub being retired?

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It’s possible what was suggested is XFS (?) - if Yes, it’s a long-standing, very-reliable, 64-bit journaling file system (created by Silicon Graphics in 1993). Fully supported by openSUSE.

By default, it’s what I use for /home and BTRFS for /. For example:

vbox:~ # lsblk -f
NAME   FSTYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           
├─sda1        
├─sda2 btrfs  /var
│             /usr/local
│             /srv
│             /opt
│             /root
│             /boot/grub2/i386-pc
│             /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
│             /.snapshots
│             /
├─sda3 swap   [SWAP]
└─sda4 xfs    /home    <========
vbox:~ #

.
I have one computer (desktop) that has been running [only] XFS for the whole system … been running well over eight years, with zero issue(s).

15

ZFS is not supported by default, and has zero advantage over btrfs for your needs. My advice would be to stick with the defaults, but I can see grub2-efi as a proper change. Unless f.e. X11 and YaST, grub2 is still actively developed and maintained. A while ago I did quite some reseach on moving my ~3 yo TW install to systemd-boot and selinux. I concluded that it would be a hastle without any clear benefits.

1 Like
16

Have you seen the amount of patches that are applied to the likes of grub2? Tumbleweed rolls I’ve not had any issues with the defaults. Mind you I do also use ext4 as the primary file system on a few systems.

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I don’t think I was thinking of xfs, but that looks like a good set up as I know there was always an argument for having a separate home drive in case you had problems with the OS & I guess Ext 4 is also widely used these days too. However my understanding is that with btrfs & the snapshots giving you the ability to roll back if there are any issues, there is probably no need for it these days perhaps.

18

Yes definitely thinking I’ll stick with btrfs & I’m a Gnome user which seems to integrate well with grub2, although equally the systemd-boot thing seems like it is supported by openSUSE so maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of change perhaps if it is offered by default?

19

I haven’t seen that but as I say above maybe & as you suggest maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of the defaults & change as long as make the that partition big enough.

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My main file server runs systemd-boot, btrfs, SELinux and the ability to boot into Gnome it also runs nvidia from the cuda repository. I use 4GB for /boot/efi.