Mint Ubuntu Dual Boot Raid 0 Single Home

[Crgky127]

I've found some info on these components, but I'm at a loss on how it all fits together. Has anyone done this before? Currently I have Ubuntu on a single RAID 0 (used the alternate CD), where sda1 is boot, sdb1 is swap, and sda2 and sdb2 are RAID 0 containing home and everything else. I would like to add Mint and share the /home.

I'm assuming this would work to shrink the RAID 0 http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-resize ... tware-raid. Then I need to create sda3/sdb3/md1 and sda4/sdb4/md2. Then somehow move /home out of md0 into md2, without messing up the Ubuntu install. I'm guessing the hardest part will be installing Mint so that it adds to the grub in /boot on sda1, uses the pre-existing /home on md2, and uses md1 for everything else.

If RAID 0 makes this a pain, as I don't do as much disk access nowadays, would it be easier to do the following to transfer to a single disk? Make new partition on external or third disk, copy /home to it, get Ubuntu to use that without messing up the Ubuntu install (not sure if I need this step). Save an image of md1 to an external with acronis. Delete sdb1/sdb2/sda2. Leave sda1 as /boot, create new sda2 as swap, create sda3 and copy home there too. Create sdb1 as half, image the Ubuntu install to that. Modify grub entry on sda1 from md0 to sdb1. Get Ubuntu to use sda2 as swap instead of sdb1 (not sure if this is needed). Get Ubuntu to use sda3 as /home instead of the partition on external/third, remove external/third disk. Create sdb2 on the other half. At this point, Ubuntu should work, and I think it should be ok to install Mint, adding entry to grub on sda1, also using sda2 for swap and sda3 for /home like this http://gaarai.com/2009/01/07/dual-boot- ... ared-home/.

[RedWagon]

You totally lost me in the third paragraph. But as far as sharing the home, I think it's a bad idea. If you've ever used an Ubuntu home in Mint it will make your Mint look EXACTLY like Ubuntu since all of your gnome configs are in your home directory. The Ubuntu icon probably would be a gnome icon in Mint but other than that your two OS's would look so similar you probably couldn't tell them apart.
A better solution would be to create a partition for you to put files but don't mount your /home to it. Mount it to /media/files/ in fstab and then use symbolic links to share only certain directories and configs.

Example:
In Ubuntu run

Code: Select all

mv ~/Pictures/ /media/files/Pictures
ln -s /media/files/Pictures ~/Pictures

then in your other OS:

Code: Select all

rmdir ~/Pictures/
ln -s /media/files/Pictures/ ~/Pictures

Now your Pictures directory will be the same in both OS's. You can also do configs for things you know you want in both OS's (Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, etc.)

EDIT: Is this a mdadm RAID 0 array or a hardware one?

[Crgky127]

Ah thank you very much, that would have been very bad. I'm glad there is that level of granularity.

Second paragraph was keeping the RAID 0 (mdadm, not hardware), while the third is using 2 single disks. I'm not sure which way to go, as I have never resized or imaged RAID 0.

[RedWagon]

I'm impressed you were able to boot off a RAID 0 mdadm array, I tried it a couple years ago and could never get it to work. Do you have a link to the tutorial you used to do it?