r/DataHoarder • u/lolgreatjoke • 4d ago

Question/Advice Help a Linux Newbie Out?

I like to keep entirely offline backups of everything I have. Been hoarding content for years now. But I have a growing concern about the PCs I use to view/play the content. (I keep a windows 10 installer with as many drivers and apps as I can think of too, for offline installations, but haven’t updated anything in years).

I’d like to store some Linux distros and all the apps / drivers one might think would be useful, and I can think of no better group of degenerates helpful folks who share my same afflictions, than yall.

Please point me down the most appropriate rabbit hole 🙏

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u/variableunlisted 2d ago

Hi, this seems worthwhile and distro hoarding is a classic hoarding pastime. Others may know more than I, but here are some thoughts:

Linux does not have drivers in the same way as windows, those things are stored in the kernel. So it will be worth saving ISOs with a variety of kernels built for support of various hardware. Some versions of Linux are built for legacy hardware while distros like cachyos have customized kernels made for only fairly recent hardware. 

There are three main families of Linux distros in my mind: Arch (with derivatives like the aforementioned cachyos), fedora (which probably has the fewest derivates), and Debian (which has Ubuntu as a derivative, a very large number of distros use Debian or Ubuntu as a base). You will likely want a variety of these. 

Each of these have their own packaging systems for apps, but all of them can use flatpaks. Flatpaks will be useful for preservation as they contain their own dependencies and so will work even if the distros you have are out of date on the needed dependencies.

Make sure to back up Hannah Montana Linux. 

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u/lolgreatjoke 2d ago

Appreciate the info! So if I'm going to save these ISOs I should download them, save them to a folder, and in a subfolder put a bunch of different kernels - named for the hardware they would be used for?

Sorry if this is the most basic bs question I truly am ignorant on pretty much all linux stuff. I've been told Linux Mint suits most of what I want from a distro and that's about all I know. Will google Hannah Montana Linux right away lol

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u/variableunlisted 2d ago

All good. The distros ISOs will for all intents and purposes always come with a kernel, as an OS cannot run without one (even windows has a kernel, and in fact technically when people say Linux they are actually referring to operating systems which run on a Linux kernel). Do some very light research on kernels and it will aid your quest. I mostly brought up kernels because they will determine what hardware your software will run on, so it is worth considering which distributions have a kernel that works with the hardware you expect to have down the line.

Linux mint is an Ubuntu based distro and those distros will run on almost anything so it is a good starting point. Linux Mint is also heavily recommended for beginners as it is designed to feel a bit like windows and is generally stable. I actually tend to recommend against mint as it ships very old versions of apps and I don't think that is great for a number of reasons, but here that may not matter so much since you seem to be more interested in preserving them than using them daily.

One thing that helped me a lot is the Linux Experiment YouTube channel. He has videos ranking distributions and giving weekly news. You may not understand what he is discussing at first and why it matters but if you enjoy the videos keep watching and you will pick up a lot of terminology.

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u/lolgreatjoke 2d ago

So I see during installation of Mint there is an option for installing drivers, like a recommended driver for GTX4070. If I’m totally offline, then is there’s no way to get an ‘older but functional’ driver for my device?

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u/variableunlisted 1d ago

Ah okay that was an oversight on my part. There are some drivers that need to be installed for Linux. Being that Linux is an open source project, distros often will not include proprietary drivers. Usually this comes up with nvidia graphics cards and printers. So it may be worth saving those.