Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

arvethir · 2019-11-10 03:48:50

I am about to purchase a new laptop and want to install both Arch Linux and Ubuntu 18.04 on it. I need them to share a directory to store general heavy files. However, most of the solutions I have found are about sharing /home directory, which scares me in terms of configuration and reliability. I have also found pages that explain having share directory between Arch and Ubuntu. However, they are either top-level explanations or very old dated.
To conclude, Can someone explains to me step by step to how to create a partition table for arch Linux to have a shared directory between another distro? (my total storage for two distros is 512G) Thanks in advance!

http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/dual … arch-linux (fully separated)

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=106547 ( at #3 the thing I want is suggested but I don't know how to do that)

Last edited by arvethir (2019-11-10 03:49:29)

Trilby · 2019-11-10 03:58:20

What part of it do you not understand? You just create one partition just for this shared data. The #3 post there seems to conflate this with not having a seperate home partition on either distro, but that's completely unrelated.

You will have 1 partition for the arch root filesyste, and 1 for the Ubuntu filesystem. And for your current goals, you will need at least a third partition that is shared between the two OSs. Beyond that, you are free to have more partitions for things like /home/ or /boot/ of either system - this choice has nothing to do with the goal of having one shared partition.

arvethir · 2019-11-10 05:10:44

Trilby wrote:

And for your current goals, you will need at least a third partition that is shared between the two OSs.

So the thing I want to understand how to make both see that partition? If I first install Ubuntu with an extra partition and, for arch installation, I use the remaining free space for normal Arch installation, will Arch see that third partition automatically? If not, I need guidance on how to implement those extra steps. Thanks for the reply btw!

xse · 2019-11-10 05:17:58

Hey,

First, something i'd encourage you to do is to fire up a virtual machine with a 10G virtual hard drive and try both solutions, it's a quick and easy way to figure out what you'd prefer, you can "save" the machine state at any point break it and go back in time 15 minutes to try again! Really there's no better way to get a clear picture of how this works.

If you're not confortable sharing /home between the two distributions, you can either:

A) Create a random partition, once both systems are installed you modify /etc/fstab on both systems to automatically mount that partition to let's say /foo at startup. (I use /foo but it can be anything, you can have it as /home/arvethir/shared if you like it that way)

B) Do not create a random partition, you don't especially need a special partition to share directories between both systems as you can mount any directory from ubuntu inside a directory on your archlinux and the inverse is also true.
You can then also add a line in both /etc/fstab to mount that directory at startup, let's say you want /home/arvethir/ubuntu on Arch to be /home/arvethir in Ubuntu, and /home/arvethir/archlinux on Ubuntu to be /home/arvethir on Arch.

Last edited by xse (2019-11-10 05:19:54)

liewkj · 2019-11-10 08:33:48

xse wrote:

First, something i'd encourage you to do is to fire up a virtual machine with a 10G virtual hard drive and try both solutions,

I absolutely agree with this recommendation. With Arch as the fully updated and current host OS, there isn't any reason to dual-boot another Linux. If one prefers the stability of Ubuntu, then QEMU KVM virtual machine can actually run Ubuntu at near bare-metal speed on today's Intel/AMD CPUs with hardware assisted virtualization such as VT-x and AMD-V. QEMU VirGL OpenGL acceleration indeed works very for Linux guests on Linux host, so for the DE/WM that support 3D acceleration, they are indeed accelerated even on virtual machines.

If you have recent Intel CPU with Broadwell+ HD Graphics, then you have another option of getting near bare-metal speed for graphics acceleration for virtual machines using iGVT-g. This is something that I haven't experimented myself since I have opted for Ryzen APU for my laptop. While Intel Graphics has always irrelevant for serious gaming, the R&D investments of making better graphics acceleration for virtual machines is truly admirable. I wish AMD would have done the same for Ryzen APU with technologies similar to iGVT-g.

arvethir · 2019-11-10 11:16:44

xse wrote:

Hey,
First, something i'd encourage you to do is to fire up a virtual machine with a 10G virtual hard drive and try both solutions, it's a quick and easy way to figure out what you'd prefer, you can "save" the machine state at any point break it and go back in time 15 minutes to try again! Really there's no better way to get a clear picture of how this works.

I will definitely try your suggestion as soon as possible. Thanks:)

liewkj wrote:

I absolutely agree with this recommendation. With Arch as the fully updated and current host OS, there isn't any reason to dual-boot another Linux. If one prefers the stability of Ubuntu, then QEMU KVM virtual machine can actually run Ubuntu at near bare-metal speed on today's Intel/AMD CPUs with hardware assisted virtualization such as VT-x and AMD-V. QEMU VirGL OpenGL acceleration indeed works very for Linux guests on Linux host, so for the DE/WM that support 3D acceleration, they are indeed accelerated even on virtual machines.
If you have recent Intel CPU with Broadwell+ HD Graphics, then you have another option of getting near bare-metal speed for graphics acceleration for virtual machines using iGVT-g. This is something that I haven't experimented myself since I have opted for Ryzen APU for my laptop. While Intel Graphics has always irrelevant for serious gaming, the R&D investments of making better graphics acceleration for virtual machines is truly admirable. I wish AMD would have done the same for Ryzen APU with technologies similar to iGVT-g.

I will reach about the things you have said. I actually hate Ubuntu:( The university requires to use their VPN for most of the tasks they have given on courses. Since, instead of providing the VPN configurations, they give an application that is not compatible with Arch Linux. Therefore I need a Ubuntu environment that has a good performance for my school projects. However, before trying dual boot, I will definitely try that solution too. Thanks!

I will update the post following week when I get the laptop.

Trilby · 2019-11-10 13:07:20

arvethir wrote:

If I first install Ubuntu with an extra partition and, for arch installation, I use the remaining free space for normal Arch installation, will Arch see that third partition automatically?

No. Arch will not even see it's own partition "automatically". You need to specify which partitions to use for various purposes whether or not another distro happens to already use one of them. That's my point, there is absolutely nothing special about these circumstances because one partition will be shared: you still create partitions the same way as you would otherwise, and you still mount them or configure them to be mounted the same was as you would otherwise.

If you don't know how this would be done "otherwise", that's a fair question, but it is a very different question. And to that question (how do I create and mount partitions) the proper answer would be to follow the installation guide. This is really no different from dual booting and using a removable flash drive to share files between the two OSs - except that rather than formating an external flash drive, you just create a partition and filesystem for the shared data on the internal disk.

Last edited by Trilby (2019-11-10 15:12:24)

2ManyDogs · 2019-11-10 14:00:16

Moving to Newbie Corner.

Slithery · 2019-11-10 14:28:52

arvethir wrote:

I actually hate Ubuntu:( The university requires to use their VPN for most of the tasks they have given on courses. Since, instead of providing the VPN configurations, they give an application that is not compatible with Arch Linux.

How hard have you tried? It may be trivial to get it to work with Arch.

Simply extracting the .deb archive may reveal all of the information that is required...

Arch Linux

#1 2019-11-10 03:48:50

Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#2 2019-11-10 03:58:20

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#3 2019-11-10 05:10:44

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#4 2019-11-10 05:17:58

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#5 2019-11-10 08:33:48

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#6 2019-11-10 11:16:44

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#7 2019-11-10 13:07:20

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#8 2019-11-10 14:00:16

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

#9 2019-11-10 14:28:52

Re: Having a shared directory on dual boot(Arch and Ubuntu)

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