How best to set up a separate /home partition, and pros/cons

[Bill Stanley]

On 11/25/2012 04:54 PM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> Oops.  If you really meant to use the same home for different distros,
> please heed the advice of others.  Don't do that.
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 1:51 PM, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com
> <mailto:clanlaw at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 25 November 2012 19:20, John D. Herron <paradox.herron at bluewin.ch
>     <mailto:paradox.herron at bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>      > Hi, all.
>      >
>      > Currently running Ubuntu Natty pre-installed on a stand-alone machine
>      > (Dual-core AMD Athlon 255, 4 GB RAM, 1TB HDD).
>      >
>      > Since I have a lot of unused disk space I'd like to add and try
>     out some
>      > other distros (Linux Mint 13, Zorin OS, ...).
>      >
>      > In order to keep things 'streamlined' (i.e. to avoid unnecessary
>      > duplications) I'm looking into setting up a separate /home
>     partition to
>      > serve the future distros as well.
>      >
>      > Is this a reasonable idea? If so, how should I best go about it?
>
>     I think it is not a good idea to try and share a home folder between
>     different versions of ubuntu never mind between different distros.
>     You will have different versions of applications on the two systems
>     trying to use the same configuration and data files.  Moving from a
>     earlier version to a later should not be a problem, but if you try to
>     go back to the earlier one you may well have problems.  Trying to do
>     the same with different distributions may be even worse as they may
>     have conflicting requirements in files in the home directory.
>
>     Colin
>

You probably can have links to your user data.  Create documents, 
pictures, music, downloads etc directories somewhere where all of the 
distros can access it.  Then have links to these directories and keep 
all of your user data there.  Of course, you have to get the file 
permissions right.

>      >
>      > By the way: i'm aware that Natty is no longer supported and intend to
>      > upgrade to (or new-install) the latest LTS version.
>      >
>      > Thanks for your help and/or comments.
>      > john
>      >
>      > --
>      > ubuntu-users mailing list
>      > ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com <mailto:ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>      > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>      > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>
>     --
>     ubuntu-users mailing list
>     ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com <mailto:ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>     Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>     https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>
>
>
>
> --
> Kevin O'Gorman
>
> programmer, n. an organism that transmutes caffeine into software.
>
>


-- 

Bill Stanley