Sharing /Home Partition across multiple distro's

Dregath · 2009-07-07 19:05:43

I'm still relativly new to Linux, I have been using a WUBI install of Ubuntu for a while now and after researching a bit more in depth I've found out a heap about all the other great distro's that I would like to try so I am currently going through the stage of testing pretty much every distro I can get my hands on. I have a 250gb HDD that i have partition so that windows has 150gb of it and I'm left with 100gb for my linux distro's. To cut down on the size and to allow me to be able to access my files easier from each distro I was thinking about having one universal /home partition across all the distro's. Would this work? I've looked into it a bit and read that my user name would to be the same, and I've also read something about ID's having to be the same?

In short: Will having multiple distro's of linux sharing the same /home work? If it can work, how will I need to set my distro's up (Re-Installing is not a problem as I've just wiped my whole HDD on the computer I'm hoping to do this on and have 100gb unallocated space with a fresh install of Windows 7 taking up the other 150gb)

zimt · 2009-07-07 19:18:11

Your UID (user ID) should be the same too. I think, Ubuntu is assigning UID=1000 to the first user. Check by simply typing "id" in a terminal. I wouldn't do it though as you might run into problems with all the hidden files stored in your home directory. Say a program named foo has a config directory ~/.foo in your home directory. You boot a stable Distro A and start foo. Then you boot a bleeding edge distro B with a newer version of foo and start foo again. foo may now update the config file to a new format which may not be readable by the old version of foo implemented in your stable distro A.
Long story short: You might have problems with incompatible config files due to version differences of programs in different distros.

Hope this helped
Zimt

Last edited by zimt (2009-07-07 19:18:23)

Dregath · 2009-07-07 19:34:28

I see so would I be better off saying doing something like

sda1-Windows7-50GB-NTFS
sda2-Arch-25GB-EXT3
sda3-Files-100GB-NTFS (So Windows can read it nativity, I know there's app's so windows can read EXT but its just easier)
sda4-Extended-N/A
sda5-Distro1-25GB-EXT3
sda6-Distro2-25GB-EXT3
(I know I need more than 1 partition for my arch install, I just set it out that way as a total of all the partitions needed)
That would use up all 250GB and I'm assuming 25GB is enough for most distro's to be able to function well, and having a separate 100GB partition for my files (Just stuff like movies,music and documents, that I like to access on all my O.S.

Edit: It's 6am, I haven't slept and my maths was a bit dodgy

Last edited by Dregath (2009-07-07 20:07:29)

Trent · 2009-07-07 19:39:35

The user name doesn't technically have to be the same (you can set user1's home to /home/user2), but it's an extra step. As for the IDs, yes, all the users that use some home directory need to have the same UID. You can set a user ID with the -u flag to usermod; e.g.

usermod -u 1001 username

Dregath wrote:

In short: Will having multiple distro's of linux sharing the same /home work?

Yes. Whether it's a good idea is another question. You can run into problems if the software on one distro doesn't match up with the software on another. Some applications are particularly sensitive to the arrangement of files in your home, and some versions may fight over the naming of certain files or directories. If you have binaries in your home, they may not work on more than one distro. I don't know how common these kinds of conflicts are in practice; it depends on what software you have installed (but it could be more of a problem with Arch than with less cutting-edge distros).

I'm not trying to scare you off the idea. If you want to try it, go ahead. I suggest that you wait until you settle on a definite usage scheme and know in what context you will be using which files. Also, there may be other solutions depending on your needs. Find the best one for you.

Edit: Your second suggested scheme (oo, alliteration) will work fine. A note: 25 gigs is excessive for your / partitions; 10GB is more reasonable unless you plan to install LOTS of extraneous applications.

Last edited by Trent (2009-07-07 19:45:30)

eDio · 2009-07-07 19:39:59

My /home is shared beetween arch and ubuntu. I don't have any problems.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-07-07 19:05:43

Sharing /Home Partition across multiple distro's

#2 2009-07-07 19:18:11

Re: Sharing /Home Partition across multiple distro's

#3 2009-07-07 19:34:28

Re: Sharing /Home Partition across multiple distro's

#4 2009-07-07 19:39:35

Re: Sharing /Home Partition across multiple distro's

#5 2009-07-07 19:39:59

Re: Sharing /Home Partition across multiple distro's

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