Shared /home partition

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Wed May 02, 2007 5:11 pm

hey guys... I'd like some input / comments cuz I'm a bit lost out here...

I've followed the instructions scorp123 gave on partitioning the drives (the simple version with a shared home directory)... did everything step by step according to the wiki to copy my home to the newly created partition, rename home to oldhome, create new /home and than mount the partition to /home... I can now login as always, but I've noticed that my icons have changed to default gnome and my Desktop ended up as owned by root as well as some (but not all) files that were on my desktop... weird...

I've forgot to mention that b4 I've copied my original home to the new partition I've also installed Bianca KDE and set it up initially from the installer to use that new partition for /home...

Maybe I've overwritten some files later on, but now I can no longer log into KDE... said something about can not start kstartup??something... check your installation... well I guess I'll just reinstall... it is only a 15 minute old installation

well... these are my experiences... I'd like to know why were my settings in gnome changed if any1 has any ideas?

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Wed May 02, 2007 9:12 pm

Why not install correctly right away and have /home created at install time?

You probably messed up when you copied your stuff from your old home to the new location. Most people make horrible mistakes there and don't use the right parameters when copying stuff .... Nope, the "cp" command alone is not enough - you need plenty of more parameters there, and just creating a simple "tar" file won't solve the problem

... you still need plenty of additional parameters

EDIT: The parameters given in the Wiki here are correct:
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _partition
The magic trick is to use e.g.

Code: Select all

cp -a -v -u ....

... OR as root: ...

Code: Select all

cd / && tar -pczvf Home_Backup.tar.gz /home

... and then unpack everything again when you need it (as root !!): ...

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cd / && tar -pzxvf /path/to/archive.tar.gz

These commands should create OK copies of your /home ... The tar method has the advantage that you get to keep a nice archived backup copy of your /home that you could use on other systems too ... or you could use it again and again and again in case of re-installations ...

End of EDIT ...

I suggest you install right away using a correct partitioning setup so you don't have to bother about copying stuff?

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:10 am

soooo... what yer saying is that instead of the wiki:

Code: Select all

sudo cp -a -v -u /home/* /mnt/newhome/

I should use:

Code: Select all

cp -a -v -u /home/* /mnt/newhome/

(without sudo)...

I'm afraid I'm already past the point of no return... is there a way to fix the copy I made?

Boo · Post by **Boo** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:32 am

yes

chown -R niksavel:niksavel /mnt/newhome/*

will set all users homedirectories and subdirectories to owner niksavel and group niksavel (i expect you only have your home directory there).

the sudo will set all ownership of the files/directories to root.

unless you use a -p as well to preserve ownership of the file/dirs.

sudo cp -a -v -u -p /home/* /mnt/newhome/

the -p option is good to use most of the time when copying.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:43 am

okay, thanks... live and learn, eh?

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu May 03, 2007 2:45 am

okay... all sorted now, the old Bianca gnome installation works perfectly as it used to, and I have BIanca KDE up and running with graphics installed and everything fine

Now... since I have a crapload of stuff already installed in Bianca gnome, is there an easy way to migrate the stuff to the new Bianca KDE install or do I have to re-download everything I want installed here? i.e. some programs, games etc... stuff installed via synaptic...

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Thu May 03, 2007 5:43 am

NiksaVel wrote:(without sudo)...

No

Such operations are preferrably done as root or else you could run into "permission denied" errors ... Either use sudo or switch into root proper (e.g. via sudo su - ...)

scorp123 · Post by **scorp123** » Thu May 03, 2007 5:44 am

Boo wrote:the sudo will set all ownership of the files/directories to root.

Wrong

The man page is your friend. cp -a -v -u is just fine ... You may want to read about what the "-a" parameter does

"-a" is the same as "-dpR" ... su using one more "-p" is totally redundant and not needed.

How dare you question my shell commands I give to others!!

Boo · Post by **Boo** » Thu May 03, 2007 5:51 am

yes (simple answer) to the download agian for kde since mint kde and gnome versions have their own / partitions.
but your single home will mean that any settings they put in your home will be the same on both mint versions.

NiksaVel · Post by **NiksaVel** » Thu May 03, 2007 4:57 pm

bleh... remastersys cleared it out when I was backing up