Sharing file systems

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 19 March 2006 14:18, Sumeet Pal Singh wrote:
> HI
> I have ubuntu 5.10 on my system and using FC3 since it was
> released. I tried to install FC4 on my system by sharing the swap
> and /home partition between FC4 and ubuntu. The installation went
> well. I did not install KDE in FC4. I was well aware of permission
> screw ups that this could lead to, hence I did not create any user
> (The UID and GID of root is preserved across Linux distros)
>
> I booted in as root and created a new user with UID and GID same as
> on ubuntu.

Good, that's the one step many people omit and wonder why it doesn't 
work...

> Now I booted in GNOME and it was completely configured!!!! Moreover
> gaim started and signed me in to all my accounts!!! This was first
> time login...
>
> My question is that can is sharing /home okay for a long run or
> will it lead to problems.

It's perfectly fine to do this. Sometimes you have minor issues like 
programs called from your own scripts not being in the right place, 
or different versions of some software on two distros trying to use 
the same config file. These are all minor irritations and seldom 
break anything. Your data wills till be intact.

> Also can other file systems like /usr be shared along with this and
> if it can be  then under what restrictions??

You can't share /usr. The things that set one distro apart from 
another are all in /usr and they don't play nicely together. Some 
things can be safely shared (man pages, icons) but they make up such 
a small portion of the file system that it's best to have two copies

In general, pure data can be shared easily - database files, web 
sites, ftp dirs, home dirs. 
/usr/local usually works if programs are compiled as self-contained 
units but isn't normally worth the effort (/usr/local/ tends to be 
very small)
/opt usually works fine if the recomendations in FHS were followed.

/bin, /sbin/, /lib, /etc, /usr and most unwise to be shared

> If any one has done this please let me know.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five