A system with programs in /home/user, how?

aberkoke · 2010-05-25 13:34:08

Hi. I have an Asus eeepc 901 with only 4 gb of fast ssd drive. My / partition is in this drive, but disk space is not enough for me. I want to ask, how can i install applications in /home (16 gb drive), with an automated process??

I have thinking that, if would have a form of install applications in /home/user/aplications for example and then, create symbolic links to their /usr/bin, /usr/share folders, can i do it? Do you know if there is a program for it??

I have disk space problems often in this netbook, but i haven't found solution yet.

Of course, I would install only some heavy programs with this method (openoffice, google earth...) or low use programs

axel668 · 2010-05-25 13:51:54

Have a look at http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=96898
Didn't try it, but it seems to be exactly what you want ...

hbekel · 2010-05-25 14:29:12

Symlinking from the the root fs to your home directory may work fine, although that's ugly imho. But I haven't tried that.

Alternatively, add another partion on your /home drive, copy /opt to it and simply mount that to /opt in fstab. Remember that the filesystem may be spread over as many partitions as you like. Since oo and google-earth are in /opt, this might help somewhat already.

Some people just use ./configure --prefix=/home/username/local to install software directly under ~/local while circumventing the package manager. That will create a hierarchy similar to that under /usr. Of course this will require some bootstrapping, e.g. you need to add ~/local/bin to your PATH, ~/local/lib to your ld.so.conf, man-db paths, and probably more... but you're mileage may vary, as you'll certainly find software that doesn't have a --prefix setting or isn't prepared to be run like this in some way (e.g. making hard coded assumptions about it's install location). Things will get more complicated if you want to do it under pacman control, i.e. you'd have to build your packages using abs and adjust the install locations. In any case, you'll need some familiarity with the way things work in general.

So you can take the above route if you feel confident and have time, you can use it with abs/pacman if you have a lot of time...

Or try HAI, which, as far as i understood it, has the benefit of being designed for this purpose and just use the official arch packages...

Last edited by hbekel (2010-05-25 14:35:49)

aberkoke · 2010-05-25 15:58:37

Hi. Thanks.:):)
@axel668. I have tested HAI in my other computer, but, I have seen that it works with / partition (through unionfs). Space disk is the same between / partition and /home/user/.hai/unions/XXX (unionfs). I have tested it this afternoon with hoping it runs programs from /home, but i think this is not so.

@hbekel. Openoffice doesn't use /opt, http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra … ase/files/. Hitherto, I had done this, but with separate individual folders for each program. I think is the best solution, although I have to mount the folder for each program. I can test with /opt.

Compile each program (oo, for example) is too much for a netbook, i think.

Again Thanks

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-25 13:34:08

A system with programs in /home/user, how?

#2 2010-05-25 13:51:54

Re: A system with programs in /home/user, how?

#3 2010-05-25 14:29:12

Re: A system with programs in /home/user, how?

#4 2010-05-25 15:58:37

Re: A system with programs in /home/user, how?

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