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

[MR]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:31 AM, Ric Moore <wayward4now at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ramen! Data is just fine, music files, videos, pdfs, documents, stuff like
> that. But to retain old config files is begging to be shot in the foot.
> Again, that is why I make my separate partition to be mounted as /opt
>
> Then I just link ~/Desktop to /opt/Desktop and Videos to /opt/Videos, etc. I
> do this will ALL of the prefab directories in my home directory. Then when I
> re-install it's to my root / partition and once done, I merely recreate my
> links to have all the personal stuff back that isn't release specific. I
> keep a copy of my old fstab in /opt to remind me how to mount /opt back.
> Then I edit my new /etc/fstab file to add it back. I keep my bookmarks to
> firefox backups and email backup in /opt as well. I just import them back.
> Since all of my java devel is kept in ~/Documents it's all still there once
> it is relinked. Piece O Cake. Ric
>
+1

I had a similar situation when I first installed 10.10 on a laptop and
then copied all the files from my home directory on my desktop to my
home directory on the laptop - bad idea.

I never figured out exactly which config files were to blame, but I
created a different home directory (not user) for the desktop files
and set the standard home links (Documents, Downloads, etc.) to point
to that set of home directories and it all works fine.  For the few
files that I need or want in my real home directory, I just copy them
back.

YMMV

MR