How best to set up a separate /home partition, and pros/cons

[Kevin O'Gorman]

I've done this a lot.  Here's what I do.  I'll assume you know how to
accomplish each step, but if not then ask.

Prepare a partition where the stuff will go.  It should be empty except
possibly for a lost+found directory, depending on the filesystem it has.
Create a mount point somewhere and mount it.  I usually use /mnt/newhome.
Make sure you are the owner.
Copy your stuff to the new partition.  "cp -a" is pretty good for this, as
is rsync.
Unmount it.
Create an entry in /etc/fstab that mounts this partition on your home
directory.  Use it to mount the new directory on top of your old one.
Log out and in again.
Is all well?  Do a "df ." to make sure you're in the new partition.  See if
everything works.

Sometime in the future, arrange to go back and remove the original.



On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Peter Teuben <teuben at astro.umd.edu> wrote:

> I always do this, ie. have /home on a separate partition. Occasionally
> you got shot in the foot by applications where the versions are
> different, and they like to update their settings/preferences in
> another style/format from what you used before. Then switching between
> two distros can become
> very hazardous if the app doesn't have taking this in their
> upgrade/downgrade path.
>
>
> On 11/25/2012 02:20 PM, John D. Herron wrote:
> > Hi, all.
> >
> > Currently running Ubuntu Natty pre-installed on a stand-alone machine
> > (Dual-core AMD Athlon 255, 4 GB RAM, 1TB HDD).
> >
> > Since I have a lot of unused disk space I'd like to add and try out
> > some other distros (Linux Mint 13, Zorin OS, ...).
> >
> > In order to keep things 'streamlined' (i.e. to avoid unnecessary
> > duplications) I'm looking into setting up a separate /home partition
> > to serve the future distros as well.
> >
> > Is this a reasonable idea? If so, how should I best go about it?
> >
> > By the way: i'm aware that Natty is no longer supported and intend to
> > upgrade to (or new-install) the latest LTS version.
> >
> > Thanks for your help and/or comments.
> > john
> >
>
>
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-- 
Kevin O'Gorman

programmer, n. an organism that transmutes caffeine into software.
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