universal home partition??

[Basil Chupin]

On 05/09/2010 03:18, Errol Sapir wrote:
> I have a separate partition for /home. I only use a KDE desktop, and
> have exclusively used Kubuntu. After installing 10.04 I had several
> problems with Kubuntu as spoken about in the "impressions of Lucid"
> thread. I now want to try other distros that use KDE. Is there a way of
> keeping my same home partition for other distros? I'm not worried about
> the layout of my home partition but wouldn't want to loose my documents,
> e-mail etc.  I thought of maybe even having the other distro as a dual
> (triple) boot. I was thinking about trying Fedora or PClinuxos.
> Errol
>    

As far as I am concerned, theoretically there should not be a problem. 
When installing another Linux OS, when you get to the partition manager 
show "/home" as a mountable, but do not format, partition.

However, you should also be aware that the new OS will create its own 
control files inside your home directory and will, quite possibly, 
overwrite some existing files. So, backup whatever you consider important.

Also, there is anecdotal evidence to show that even when upgrading 
within the *same* distro and leaving "/home" from the earlier version 
can cause hassles which is why people backup their "valuable data" - 
like e-mails, Documents, etc (which you should do anyway at least once a 
week or more often) and install "clean". However, there are also people 
who have claimed that they have never struck problems when using their 
"/home" as a static entity. But your mileage may vary, of course.

Backup your valuable data and then install the new OS, with the present 
"/home" included in the installation (but not formatted of course). Suck 
it and see :-) - you have the data backed-up, right?

BC

-- 
...more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.
                     W C Fields