This is not a Virtualmin question and I don’t want to take up valuable time of the lovely folks here answering questions and fixing problems…
So I’m not asking for help on how to solve this problem; rather, where to go to learn how to solve it. I’ve read linux man pages, and it’s not enough for me.
I’ve had dedicated servers for 20 years, and while I’ve learned a LOT, I have also not learned some of the basics.
For example, my current dedicated has a primary SSD and a secondary SATA drive.
I don’t know how to mount the SATA drive so that I can put backups (and maybe even a website that can be slower) out there and use it. It’s sitting unused because I’m dumb.
Is there a site out there that can teach me how to do all of these types of tasks? Or is there a good community for asking these sorts of questions where it would be on-topic? I don’t mind helping others with the things I know how to do to “pay back” or “pay it forward” all the help I’ve received over the years from others’ kindness.
I hope that makes sense and that it’s a good question to ask here - hopefully not taking up your valuable time, but helping me (and anyone like me) find a place to educate myself.
If this question is considered too off-topic to ask here, please accept my apologies and remove it. <3
Simplest is to create a partition table, then a filesystem (ext4, probably), and then mount it with mount and add it to your /etc/fstab so it mounts on boot.
Better may be to create partitions, then a physical volume, then one or more logical volumes, and then a filesystem on each logical volume.
And, more depth in the Linux Documentation Project: LVM HOWTO
I believe ext4 is still the most used filesystem for Ubuntu systems. Red Hat and EL systems have moved to btrfs by default, which may or may not be better (it has some good features, especially relevant for SSDs, but it’s new-ish and will probably require you to learn more stuff).
I am the same way – many many years – sometimes don’t know basics that I didn’t know I needed to know.
That’s why I appreciate search engines – in the past you had to “find some person” but now… just craft your question very specifically and you’ll get answers that are surprisingly good.
For instance, surf to google.com and enter “how do I install a 2nd hdd into my debian linux server and mount it and make it permanent when I reboot”. The first response will be from their AI, which I was never a fan of “in the past”… but, c’mon, even I have to admit, the AI gives me 7 steps to follow, it’s like being in a classroom with someone hand-holding you.
I agree with learning on a test box or in a VM. For the first 5 years of “dedicated server web hosting” I would keep a local VM that was an identical copy of my leased production server. I would test everything on it before trying it live. But, eventually I implemented all kinds of backups and stopped keeping the VM updated.
I would also suggest not being a tinker. I know people that won’t quit tinkering with a production server. Eventually they break it. Keep a local VM for testing/tinkering/playing/learning. Once you do several practice installs on your test VM’s then install your production server and let it be.
Do updates and nothing else.
My server maintenance goes like this:
every 5 years, lease a new server
install the latest Debian OS
install Virtualmin Pro
backup the current live production server
restore to the new server
test the new server and setup the backup process
change my 2 name servers IP’s from the current to the new
wait for DNS propagation
the users never know
Then, only do “sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade” for the next 5 years.
I also used to be irritated by it. Even turned it off.
I agree AI is really good at answering a question more specific to what I ask. BUT I find it convincingly often gives wrong information. So I ALWAYS read on and find more information to compare and decide if I think it is credible or not.
There are a few categories of catastrophic failure for AI. One of them is making shit up, which can waste a ton of time. Another is that it correctly answers the question you asked, but you’re asking the wrong question (an XY problem), and it won’t give you any hints that you’re asking the wrong question. I think I’ve seen a lot more of the latter category when people come to us with a mess they made on the advice of AI. Sometimes people are looking at a problem three or four steps removed from the root cause, and they start chasing down “solutions” to the symptoms, which AI will happily make up, making new messes that have to be cleaned up without ever even touching the root cause.
So, be very careful with AI, is what I’m saying. It lies without remorse, and it will tell you exactly what you want to hear. If you don’t know enough to to ask the right questions, you’ll ask the wrong ones and end up digging yourself a giant hole with no good ways out. Work through AI-provided answers in a test environment to make sure it does what you think it’ll do, and that it actually results in what you were trying to accomplish. Sometimes people get caught up in the asking and doing without any thinking in between, because AI answers with such enthusiasm and confidence. We’re suckers for confidence even when it’s not backed up by anything (see the success of Elon Musk for proof).
@daychilde , I sympathized with you when I read about this in the summary. I have had this problem myself and experienced it with many of my customers over the years. The problem is that of two parts; one is that things are not designed to be intuitive and two is that of poor documentation.
This has caused much suffering to all of us, so welcome to the club.
Fortunately for us, modern operating systems are getting better at automation, and that should help us a great deal.
Let me put you on a good foundation for the rest of your computer journey, and strongly recommend to never ever use Google to search. Always use something like DuckDuckGo. Keep in the forefront of your mind to protect yourself and others.
So let me assume you have installed your favorite distro of Linux and have configured your BIOS to automatically see new drives and make them available to the OS. When you boot into your DE (desktop environment) you should see them mounted automatically. If they do not, then join into the forum for that particular distro and communicate your problem there.
Everything tends to be a little different and narrowing it down by working with the specific distro is your best start.
If on the other hand, you do not know how to connect your drive to the computer, that is a different issue and I would need you to state that.
To answer the question in the title, there are many helpful YouTube channels. e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV
In addition to what the other folks said above.
