[SOLVED] Shared home partition with Ubuntu and Mint

Questions about Grub, UEFI,the liveCD and the installer
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Fred

Re: [SOLVED] Shared home partition with Ubuntu and Mint

Post by Fred »

Husse,

Here is the basic command:

ln -sf target_file/foldername symlink_filename

.....................................target folder......................symlink
ln -sf /home/richard/BuntuHome/richard/.tomboy .tomboy

Make sure you cd to the directory that you want to make the symlink in. In this case you are already there by default.

Be sure to rename the .tomboy folder that you are going to replace with a symlink, before you make the symlink. Also make sure you have the correct path to the .tomboy folder you want to use in the other distro.

It's correct and it works, try again. :-)

Fred
Husse

Re: [SOLVED] Shared home partition with Ubuntu and Mint

Post by Husse »

It works without the last tomboy - but of course it would be better if I put a space between the two tomboys :)
rbanavara

Re: [SOLVED] Shared home partition with Ubuntu and Mint

Post by rbanavara »

Interesting post..., I was going through Fred's posts and this one picked my curiosity. It took me around half an hour to go through most of the post.

To answer Mapleblack's question (erm, its already a month old) take a backup of current menu.lst and later merge the 2 menu.lst (not sure how easy / difficult is this to you).

I read from the posts that sharing the tomboy config file through sym link. Will there be any problems if the tomboy in 2 OS are of different version? For that matter what if I have some other apps config file that I would like to share (and their versions are different)?

Also reading through I understand, I cant create one user in first OS then I cant import that user in the other OS (Ubuntu) OR rather its not advisable... IS this correct?

Finally have a clarification, I thought the UUID will only change when the partition are moved / modified. But Fred, you have said UUID will be modified when other OS are installed... Please correct me if I am wrong.

EDIT: erm, wrong edit...! removed
Fred

Re: [SOLVED] Shared home partition with Ubuntu and Mint

Post by Fred »

rbanavara wrote:
Will there be any problems if the tomboy in 2 OS are of different version?
It depends on if the structure of the config files is materially different. In the case of TomBoy, I suspect that it would work ok since that file is basically a data store anyway. I am guessing however. I don't have two versions of TomBoy to compare data stores. I would suggest you try it and see. You shouldn't hurt anything and you can always delete the symlink and rename the original config file back as it was.
I cant create one user in first OS then I cant import that user in the other OS
If you use different usernames for the installs you will have permission problems. Well... not problems, but you will have to change your permissions so all the users have access to the same data. If you use the same username, you won't have to address this issue at all.
I thought the UUID will only change when the partition are moved / modified.
This is correct, but you have to think about all the ways a partition is touched. When you install you format at least the / partition. This changes the UUID. If you have an existing install that has that partition mounted then it will be confused by the UUID change. Also, if you resize a partition or move it up against another partition, it will sometimes change not only the moved partition's UUID but also the adjacent partition you moved it up against. UUIDs are very fragile in general. Almost any action that touches the partition will cause the UUID to change. That of course causes problems with any existing installs that use UUIDs as unique identifiers.

I hope that helps clarify things for you. :-)

Fred
rbanavara

Re: [SOLVED] Shared home partition with Ubuntu and Mint

Post by rbanavara »

thanks Fred for the reply (sorry I am late to reply)

For now I would like to play safe & keep my users separate. But from this discussion I have partition schema something like:

Code: Select all

/dev/sda7           19131       19458     2620416   dd  Unknown <- Dell Media direct
/dev/sda8            7429        7689     2096451   82  Linux swap / Solaris 
/dev/sda9            7690        9647    15727603+  83  Linux <- root partition
/dev/sda10           9648       15304    45439821   83  Linux <- home partition
I have 15Gb for root & have arnd 45Gb for home, where I store all my junk. I have another 20Gb free, which I use for testing other dirstros. I keep using sda10 as my home partition so that even if I remove OS, I still have the data.

I was having ideas to make separate /opt partition so that all my extra installations may go there, but since this not always true and also it complicates things for home use, I just decided use one home partition.

Thanks guys for all the suggestions on this thread.
Locked

Return to “Installation & Boot”