Explanation request on Partitioning and a dual boot

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#1

Hi all
i have migrated to the linux recently
therefor i’m a newbie in linux.
i have several questions and Thank you in advance for your help and guidance.

what is best partitioning scheme for installing opensuse tumbleweed?

1-1- using a single btrfs partition?

1-2- using separate partitions?
which partitions should be separate and what fs type for them should i choose?

What are the pros and cons of each case?

i’m going to install openSuse tumbleweed alongside windows 10 in a dual boot and i have questions about this:

2-1- for having a dual boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes, is it better to use Windows bootmanager or GRUB to managing the boot process (bootloader)?
What are the pros and cons of each?

2-2- In a dual boot mode, if I reinstall Windows or opensuse, Does the dual boot menu goes away?
then how do add missed OS(s) (OpenSuse or windows 10 ) to the boot menu again?

please explain in both gpt and mbr modes.

thank you for your explanations.

#2

There isn’t any “one size fits all”. What’s best for me might not be what’s best for you.

I’ll describe what I am doing, and the reasons for those choices. You will need to make your own decisions and choices.

I’m use “ext4” for the root file system. That’s because I would prefer to just reinstall, rather than do a “btrfs” rollback.

I use a separate file system for “/home”. One reason here, is that I can then reinstall but keep the existing “/home”. And, of course, I also have swap.

I am using encryption, so those file systems are really logical volumes in an encrypted LVM. That’s because all disk drives eventually fail, and if I encrypt I won’t have to worry about dumpster diving.

Encryption is perhaps overkill for my needs. But why not?

I also use a separate unencrypted “/boot”, because that make encryption a bit simpler. But a separate “/boot” is not a good idea if using “btrfs”.

2-1- for having a dual boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS modes, is it better to use Windows bootmanager or GRUB to managing the boot process (bootloader)?

DO NOT mix legacy and UEFI. They don’t mix well. For dual boot, they must both boot the same way, unless you want to use the BIOS boot menu to choose between them.

If you have the choice, I recommend going with UEFI.

With UEFI, you would need to use GRUB for the boot menu. As far as I know, the Windows Boot Manager cannot handle booting linux with UEFI.

With legacy booting, either can work. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

2-2- In a dual boot mode, if I reinstall Windows or opensuse, Does the dual boot menu goes away?
then how do add missed OS(s) (OpenSuse or windows 10 ) to the boot menu again?

If you reinstall Windows and use Windows Boot Manager for the dual boot menu, you will need to set that up again.

If you reinstall openSUSE, it will normally find Windows and add a boot entry – you don’t need to do anything.

please explain in both gpt and mbr modes.

Those are just different ways of partitioning the disk. With UEFI, you should use GPT. With legacy booting, it should work with either. GPT partitioning is more modern, and better for larger disks. A disk larger that 2T in size might have problems with mbr partitioning.

#3

first of all thank you for your response.

what if i reinstall windows with using “GRUB” as dual boot menu manager? is dual boot menu goes away? have to set boot menu up again? how should do that?

If you reinstall openSUSE, it will normally find Windows and add a boot entry – you don’t need to do anything.

Suppose I use windows boot manager as dual boot menu and then reinstall openSUSE , is the dual boot menu goes away? i need to repair it? do you know how to do this?

#4

The most you should need to do is update the grub menu

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Suppose I use windows boot manager as dual boot menu and then reinstall openSUSE , is the dual boot menu goes away? i need to repair it? do you know how to do this?

You will need to repair it. Here we are talking about legacy booting. When you set that up, you create a file in Windows that contains a copy of the boot record (usually the first sector of the partition containing “/boot”). You would need to update that file. I use the “dd” command (as root) to do that.

Actually it is worse. If the grub2 package is updated, you will also need to repair booting. I got tired of that, so I found a way of using the grub boot menu to boot Windows.

There’s another problem that you might have. Some Windows updates check the boot configuration, and backout the update if they don’t like it. I ran into that issue with Windows 7 and with Windows 8.1. On the Windows 7 system (legacy booting), I used the Windows boot manager for the boot menu to avoid this problem. But, since then, I have found a way of avoiding it that still allows me to use the grub menu for booting.

For Windows 8.1, this is on a UEFI box. I have not found a sure way of preventing it. My current method is to set the system so that it boots to Windows by default. If I want to boot openSUSE from a cold start, I have to hit F12 during boot to get the BIOS boot menu. To boot to openSUSE from Windows, I hold down the SHIFT key while I click “Restart”. That gives me a choice from Windows, where one choice is “Use a device”. And when I click that, it lists my openSUSE system as the device.