Separate /home partition

[Jim Byrnes]

Nils Kassube wrote:
> 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
>

Thanks Nils (and the others who responded).

In the end I followed your advice and used the whole disk by accepting 
all the defaults.

Thanks,  Jim