Multiple Distros - One /home

[Cristopher Thomas]

How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this even possible?

Separate question:  is there documentation available that would tell me how to go about moving my current /home to a separate partition?

Thanks in advance,

--Cris

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Avi Greenbury]

Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...> wrote:
> How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is
> this even possible?

It's unpredictable, and depends on how similar the distros are. The
more similar, the lower the chance of trouble, but I'd still not
suggest it's a fantastic idea.

What're you storing? When I had multiple distros on the same box I used
to have three partitions that were mounted at ~/work ~/media and
~/stuff on each distro. Anything I wanted across them was in these, and
so there were no config file issues.

> Separate question:  is there documentation available that would tell
> me how to go about moving my current /home to a separate partition?

Quite likely through Google, but it's a pretty simple process:
- Boot in single-user mode
- Create new partition
- Move data from wherever /home is now to wherever /home will be
- Edit /etc/fstab to mount the new home partition at /home

Note that if you don't delete the data under /home and then mount
something there, it will sit there using disk space, and wont be
accessible (for deletion) until /home is unmounted.
I'd be tempted, then, to copy it across, test it, and then umount /home
and delete what was under it. But I'm paranoid.

You shouldn't *need* to be in single-user mode, just logged in as root.

--
Avi Greenbury
http://aviswebsite.co.uk ;)
http://aviswebsite.co.uk/asking-questions

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Colin Law-4]

2009/11/6 Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...>:
> How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this
> even possible?

I did this for the upgrade 8.10 to 9.04 so that I could fall back to
8.10 if any problems.   It worked ok for the limited time I needed it
(whilst confirming 9.04 was ok and installing apps etc).  There can be
problems with settings if the two distros have different versions of
an app so make sure /home is fully backed up (including hidden
folders).  Running a later version of an app may modify the settings
so an earlier version is not happy, though it should not do this.

>
> Separate question:  is there documentation available that would tell me how
> to go about moving my current /home to a separate partition?

Google found several examples of how to do this for me.  Have a look
at several before starting as there are a number of ways of doing it,
and make sure you understand what is being done so you can get out if
there are problems.  Also make sure everything is backed up of course
(and check the backup is definitely ok).

Colin

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Johnny Rosenberg]

2009/11/6 Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...>:

> How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this
> even possible?
>
> Separate question:  is there documentation available that would tell me how
> to go about moving my current /home to a separate partition?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> --Cris

As many already said, there could be trouble. If you want to reach
your personal files from all the distros, I would create a separate
partition for it. I guess that partition could be mounted to your
$HOME in all the distros you install. If not, you could always create
a link for each distro to that partition.

Johnny Rosenberg

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Fred Roller]

Cristopher Thomas wrote:
> How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is
> this even possible?

As long as you have seperate users for each build you should be able to
set up the following (example):

    sda1 = /home
       /home/user1
       /home/user2

    sda2 = /      <- of build one
    sda3 = /      <- of build two

the seperate users would keep config files specific to the builds
seperate.  This /could/ be done.  On the other hand you keep the data
separate this way.  As Avi mentioned it might be better to have shared
data partition instead:

    sda1 = /Data
    sda2 = /      <- of build one
    sda3 = /      <- of build two

then use the command "ln -s" to link directories to /Data
>
> Separate question:  is there documentation available that would tell
> me how to go about moving my current /home to a separate partition?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> --Cris

Use a live cd to shrink and repartition your hard drive.  Move your data
and mount the new partition to /home.

--
Fred
www.fwrgallery.com

"Life is like linux, simple.  If you are fighting it you are doing something wrong."


--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Brian McKee]

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...> wrote:
> How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this
> even possible?

It's possible, but the differences in the settings files between
different versions of gnome for example could quickly cause issues or
at least confusion.

What I'd do if I wanted something like that is make a partition for
the standard folders inside of home
e.g. put Documents, Desktop, Pictures etc on a separate partiton, and
symlink them into the home folder of each distro.
The settings I'd be worried about sharing are all in ~/.something
files or folders and that way would still be unique per distro.

Brian

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Cristopher Thomas]

On Fri, 2009-11-06 at 10:26 -0500, Cristopher Thomas wrote:

> How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is
> this even possible?
>
> Separate question:  is there documentation available that would tell
> me how to go about moving my current /home to a separate partition?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> --Cris

Thanks everyone.  Guess this is going to be a no go.  I was looking for
a simple way to try out another distro without having to go through the
very annoying process of setting things up after installing.  Thanks for
the input!


--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Mike McMullin]

On Fri, 2009-11-06 at 16:23 -0500, Brian McKee wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...> wrote:
> > How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> > shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this
> > even possible?
>
> It's possible, but the differences in the settings files between
> different versions of gnome for example could quickly cause issues or
> at least confusion.
>
> What I'd do if I wanted something like that is make a partition for
> the standard folders inside of home
> e.g. put Documents, Desktop, Pictures etc on a separate partiton, and
> symlink them into the home folder of each distro.

  This makes sense, but... what about conflicting UID's?

> The settings I'd be worried about sharing are all in ~/.something
> files or folders and that way would still be unique per distro.

  Agreed.



--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Paul Trevethan]

On Sat, 2009-11-07 at 01:03 -0500, Mike McMullin wrote:

> On Fri, 2009-11-06 at 16:23 -0500, Brian McKee wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...> wrote:
> > > How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
> > > shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this
> > > even possible?
> >
> > It's possible, but the differences in the settings files between
> > different versions of gnome for example could quickly cause issues or
> > at least confusion.
> >
> > What I'd do if I wanted something like that is make a partition for
> > the standard folders inside of home
> > e.g. put Documents, Desktop, Pictures etc on a separate partiton, and
> > symlink them into the home folder of each distro.
>
>   This makes sense, but... what about conflicting UID's?
>
> > The settings I'd be worried about sharing are all in ~/.something
> > files or folders and that way would still be unique per distro.
>
>   Agreed.
>
>
>

Leaving /home within the distro's root file system space and linking to
a common folder/partition (that I happen to mount as /data and is auto
mounted in each /etc/fstab) is the way I always do it. Works well here &
this machine alone has 5 different distros on it with 5 different user
names.

What I do to overcome the UID problem is that, under each distro
installed, I create a Group called 'share' and manually give it an id of
1500. That tends to be away from anything created automatically. I then
place all the users who I want to access the shared data in that group.
In fact, I make it their default group. I then make sure the shared
partition's folders are all marked as writeable by 'group'. You can even
go so far as making default 'umask' for each user as 664 rather than
644.

This way everything that gets written to the shared /data folders has a
group name of 'share', group id of '1500' and is writeable by any member
of the group. Doesn't matter what the uid of the user is or which distro
they come from.

Paul.



--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Brian McKee]

you can assign the uid when you create a user

On 11/7/09, Mike McMullin <mwmcmlln@...> wrote:

> On Fri, 2009-11-06 at 16:23 -0500, Brian McKee wrote:
>> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Cristopher Thomas <crisnoh@...>
>> wrote:
>> > How much trouble would I be making for myself if I attempted to have a
>> > shared /home partition for a dual boot of two separate distros?  Is this
>> > even possible?
>>
>> It's possible, but the differences in the settings files between
>> different versions of gnome for example could quickly cause issues or
>> at least confusion.
>>
>> What I'd do if I wanted something like that is make a partition for
>> the standard folders inside of home
>> e.g. put Documents, Desktop, Pictures etc on a separate partiton, and
>> symlink them into the home folder of each distro.
>
>   This makes sense, but... what about conflicting UID's?
>
>> The settings I'd be worried about sharing are all in ~/.something
>> files or folders and that way would still be unique per distro.
>
>   Agreed.
>
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users@...
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>

--
All you need to know about Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty -> gconftool -s --type
bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Fred Roller]

> Thanks everyone.  Guess this is going to be a no go.  I was looking for
> a simple way to try out another distro without having to go through the
> very annoying process of setting things up after installing.  Thanks for
> the input!
>
>
>  
That being the case, have you given thought to Virtualbox?

    sudo apt-get install virtualbox


--
Fred
www.fwrgallery.com

"Life is like linux, simple.  If you are fighting it you are doing something wrong."


--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Cristopher Thomas]

On 11/07/2009 01:03 PM, Fred Roller wrote:
> That being the case, have you given thought to Virtualbox?
>      sudo apt-get install virtualbox
>
>    

I'm a big fan of Virtualbox.  I just have a bad habit of looking for
ways to make my life difficult.

-- Cris

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Cybe R. Wizard]

On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:03:23 -0500
Fred Roller <froller@...> wrote:

>
> > Thanks everyone.  Guess this is going to be a no go.  I was looking
> > for a simple way to try out another distro without having to go
> > through the very annoying process of setting things up after
> > installing.  Thanks for the input!
> >
> >
> >  
> That being the case, have you given thought to Virtualbox?
>
>     sudo apt-get install virtualbox
>

Seconded.  I have seven other distros that I occasionally run in a
VirtualBox.

Cybe R. Wizard
--
When Windows are opened the bugs come in.
        Winduhs

--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Fred Roller]

Cristopher Thomas wrote:

> On 11/07/2009 01:03 PM, Fred Roller wrote:
>  
>> That being the case, have you given thought to Virtualbox?
>>      sudo apt-get install virtualbox
>>
>>    
>>    
>
> I'm a big fan of Virtualbox.  I just have a bad habit of looking for
> ways to make my life difficult.
>
> -- Cris
>
>  

Know what you mean.  That's why I have gotten /real/ good at rebuilding
:-P but a. it's fun and b. how else do we learn.

--
Fred
www.fwrgallery.com

"Life is like linux, simple.  If you are fighting it you are doing something wrong."


--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@...
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users