Separate /home partition

[Nils Kassube]

Jim Byrnes wrote:
> I've seen it recommended a number if times that you should have a
> separate /home partition.  When I first installed Ubuntu I wasn't
> aware of this option.  I'm getting a new notebook and plan on
> putting Ubuntu on it.
> 
> It will have a 320GB drive in it. Is there any rule of thumb of what
> the size of the various partitions should be?

I don't have a rule of thumb, but here are some thoughts. I wouldn't 
even use a separate /home nowadays, which is of course debatable. A 
separate /home was useful in the past if you wanted to install a new 
Ubuntu version instead of an upgrade. However for some years (I don't 
remember since when exactly) the Ubuntu installer has the option to 
preserve some directories like /home and IIRC /usr/local. You just have 
to be careful to use the manual partitioning option and select to not 
format the / partition.

The problem with your question is that you didn't specify what you want 
to use your machine for. While I would guess that most of your variable 
data are located somewhere in your /home, it might as well be in /var 
depending on your most used applications. When I used separate 
partitions in the past, I found that I never guessed the appropriate 
ratio for / and /home. After some years of using the system, one of the 
partitions was filled up but on the other one there was still a lot of 
space.

A separate /home might make sense if you want to try various 
distributions and want to use the same /home. But that isn't always a 
good option. If distribution A uses application foo in version 1.23 
while distribution B has the version 2.34 for application foo and if the 
configuration files of that application aren't compatible, it may not 
work with the older version after you have started the newer version 
once.


Nils