Installing Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and KDE

[HACKNEYL]

Hi

Some advice needed please!!

I want to try out both Mint 17.1 Cinnamon and KDE.
I have read that sometimes KDE can cause problems if installed together with say Cinnamon.
Is this correct or will it be fine as long it is the Mint version of both?
What is the best way to do this? Do I install say Cinnamon first from a DVD (which I have downloaded) and then install the KDE desktop from the terminal or do I do it also from a DVD?.
Is irt better to install KDE or Cinnamon first?

Thanks a Lot

[JOPETA]

What is the best way to do this? Do I install say Cinnamon first from a DVD (which I have downloaded) and then install the KDE desktop from the terminal or do I do it also from a DVD?.

You should try install everything from Synaptic Pakage manager. Of course DVD is not the way to do it.

On installing multi-desktop environments (i.e one Mint system with differents DE installed there are topics in the furum with this) the problems, if present, are easy to solve (different users for each desktop,..), but you will never get a clean DE. Gurus recommend to choose one after a deep testing, so is worth installing them in different partitions. In any case, if you can not decide, you have them both installed.

[HACKNEYL]

What is the best way to do this? Do I install say Cinnamon first from a DVD (which I have downloaded) and then install the KDE desktop from the terminal or do I do it also from a DVD?.

You should try install everything from Synaptic Pakage manager. Of course DVD is not the way to do it.

On installing multi-desktop environments (i.e one Mint system with differents DE installed there are topics in the furum with this) the problems, if present, are easy to solve (different users for each desktop,..), but you will never get a clean DE. Gurus recommend to choose one after a deep testing, so is worth installing them in different partitions. In any case, if you can not decide, you have them both installed.

Thanks very much!!!
So if I have it correct, the the best would be to make two partitions and install Mint KDE in one and Mint Cinnamon in the other and in the end decide on one. Well I know I could keep both if I want...

Regaring the installation:
I will want to have a dual boot (well tri-boot I guess) with Windows Vista, Mint Cinnamon and Mint KDE. So I will created the partitions and install the packages. will it automatically put the Grub in the correct place?

[JOPETA]

First you should know, how many partitions are there in the disk now, if it is GPT or MBR, unallocated (free) space in disk, RAM, SWAP partition size recommended for this RAM. Read Mint's "User Guide" to know about Mint install options. Then, you will be able to decide on this base.

Finally, depending on the option you choose on installing MInt you will need only to ensure the correct disk (not partition) where GUB will be placed.

PD: Edited to delete UEFI reference, It's Windows Vista

[gold_finger]

HACKNEYL,

If you want, boot with your live Cinnamon DVD/USB, open a terminal and enter the following command to let us take a look at your current partition structure:

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l

(Command ends in a lowercase letter "L", not a number 1.)

Also, open GParted (Menu -> Administration -> GParted) and take a screenshot of what it shows for the hard drive. Post that back here as well. Here are more detailed instructions for posting pics and terminal output to the forum in case you need it.

Once we see that, we'll be able to recommend best way to partition and install both Cinnamon and KDE.

P.s. Just in case I'm not able to check back before you're ready to go ahead with install, here's what I would do in your situation:

• Make one Root partition for Cinnamon
• Make one Root partition for KDE
• Make one Swap partition -- it will be used by both of them.
• Make one Data partition that you keep your data files on and link it to each of the two OS's. (That way all of your data files are in one place and accessible from both.)
• Use this tutorial for setting up the Data partition for auto-mounting to each OS and for how to link the folders on it back to each OS's home folder (assuming that's where you want them to show up).

Before attempting that, post back with the output requested because the partitioning procedure varies depending on whether you've got MBR or GPT partitions right now and also how much (if any) spare space there is on the drive.

[HACKNEYL]

Thanks for the reply's!!!
Much appreciated!!!

Here is the info you requested:

My PC is definitely older than 3 years. Currently running Windows Vista 32 bit
It Is a Lenovo Think Centre
Intel Cor2Duo 3.00GHz processor
4GB Ram
32bit operating system.
500GB Hard Drive -There is only one partition on which, I guess, contains windows and all my data.
313BG is unused. So I have a fair bit to use once I shrink the partition.
I have 8GB of documents, 24GB of photo's and 16GB of music in ITunes. The music Im not to fussed about if it can not
be transferred to Linux as I have all the CD's. I would like to transfer the documents and photos. I would just transfer it
and not share it with windows - I guess it just keeps the Windows and Linux operating systems totally apart. I might be
wrong....??? I presume also it would be easier to copy all data to Linux and and share it there between OS's rater than fiddling in changing the Windows stuff also - again I might be wrong.

The system seem to be MBR

Booted with Live DVD for Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.1 and went to terminal and did "sudo parted -l". this is what I got:

Model: ATA Hitachi HCP72505 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 521B/512B

Munber / Start / End / Type / File system / Flags
1 / 1049KB / 500GB / Primary / ntfs / Boot

Warning: Unable to open dev/sr0 read/write (read only file system).
dev/sr0 has been opened read only
Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0
Ignore/cancel? (I just canceled)

I could not manage to get a screen shot of GParted but here is the info:
It shows only one disk with one partition.
Partition: /dev/sda1
File system: ntfs
Size: 465.76GiB
Used: 137.74GiB
Unused: 292.02GiB
Flags: boot

Interestingly the used and unused amounts are different if I look at the disk in Windows and on GParted (via Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.1 ive DVD). Not sure why but I guess it does not matter.

It would be great to have one data partition that I can link to Cinnamon and KDE.
Hope all makes sense and is enough info for you to assist me.

Kind regards!!!

[gold_finger]

Interestingly the used and unused amounts are different if I look at the disk in Windows and on GParted (via Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.1 ive DVD). Not sure why but I guess it does not matter.

Yes, just different ways of calculating space -- nothing to worry about.


Thanks for getting back with detailed answer. Your situation is fairly simple since Windows is only taking up 1 partition. The limit on MBR drives is 4 "primary" partitions, or 3 primary and 1 "extended" partition (which can contain numerous "logical" partitions). So in your case when making the partitions, you could make 2 of them primary and the rest as logical within an extended partition; or for simplicity sake just make one large extended partition that contains all of your new partitions as logical partitions within it.

First, you should boot into Windows and defragment the "C: drive" from within disk management. Then use Windows disk management to shrink the "C: drive". Hopefully it allows you to shrink it down to around 250GB. That will give Windows some room to grow and leave half of the drive open to install Mint. If it won't let you shrink it that much it could be because of the placement of the page file. If you disable the page file you should be able to shrink it more. Here are some old instructions for doing that in XP -- I'd imagine the procedure is similar in Vista. After you finish shrinking the Windows partition, reboot into Windows one time to make sure it still works and to allow it to make any necessary adjustments to the new size. (Also, re-activate the page file if you had to disable it before.)

I would like to transfer the documents and photos. I would just transfer it
and not share it with windows - I guess it just keeps the Windows and Linux operating systems totally apart. I might be
wrong....??? I presume also it would be easier to copy all data to Linux and and share it there between OS's rater than fiddling in changing the Windows stuff also - again I might be wrong.

You can transfer stuff to the new Data partition if you want to, but you can also leave it where it is in Windows if you want to. Linux can read your Windows partition(s), but Windows can't (natively) read Linux formatted partitions. If you want to share the Data partition between Mint and Windows, just format it as either NTFS or FAT32 (instead of Ext4 if it were only used in Linux). It will show up as another lettered drive in Windows when doing that.

With the above in mind, here's how I would set everything up. (Feel free to do it another way if you prefer, or follow someone else's idea if theirs looks better/easier.)

• I'd leave the current Windows data files where they are. (You can access them from either Mint whenever you want to from the file manager.)
• Make the new partitions (with GParted from live Cinnamon Mint) in the following order and types:
  • A "primary" DATA partition, size = total unused space less 44GB, format = NTFS, label = DATA.
  • A large "extended" partition covering the rest of the drive space to contain the rest of your new partitions.
  • A "logical" Root partition, size = 20GB, format = Ext4 (to be used for Cinnamon), label = Cinnamon.
  • A "logical" Root partition, size = 20GB, format = Ext4 (to be used for KDE), label = KDE.
  • A "logical" Swap partition, size = 4096MB, format = linux-swap, no need for a label.
    
    With that setup, in the future if you decide to resize Windows or delete it you can easily expand the DATA partition into that space. If you decide to ditch either Cinnamon or KDE, you'll be able to easily merge the space from one root partition into the other or into the DATA partition (with a minimum of effort) if needed.
• Once partitions have been made ahead of time in GParted, go ahead and run the Cinnamon installer from the "Install" desktop icon.
• Choose the "Something else" option from the "Installation Type" screen.
• That will bring you to a partitioning page where you can select the appropriate pre-made partitions and set their mount points, etc. I'm going to have you set-up the mount point for the DATA partition during installation (instead of afterwards as noted in the tutorial I referred to before) so that auto-mounting is handled right from the start and is not something you need to setup afterwards.
• Set the partitions for Cinnamon as follows:
  • Highlight the DATA partition and click the "Change" button.
  • Use as = NTFS
  • Size = leave it as you already have it.
  • Mount point = /mnt/DATA
  • Do Not check the box to format the partition -- you already did that in GParted.
  • Click "OK" (or "Apply") when done with it.
  • Highlight the first 20GB partition you made and click the "Change" button.
  • Use as = Ext4 file system
  • Size = leave it as you already have it.
  • Mount point = /
  • Do Not check the box to format the partition -- you already did that in GParted.
  • Click "OK" (or "Apply") when done with it.
  • There's a weird glitch that pops up occasionally that complains about you changing the size of partitions when you haven't done so. If you run into that, just hit either "Back" or "Continue" to get rid of the message. Everything will proceed fine either way.
  • No need to do anything with the Swap partition. Mint will see it and use it automatically.
  • Near bottom of the window you'll see "Device for boot loader installation". Make sure it reads "/dev/sda". That will install the Cinnamon grub boot loader to the MBR of the drive. (This placement will be different when you install KDE.)
  • When all of that is done, double-check everything then click "Finish" installation. If you get a message complaining that you didn't tell it to format the partitions, ignore that and tell it to continue.
• After Cinnamon install completes, shutdown/reboot without the live DVD/USB and you should see boot choices for both Windows and Mint. Choose Mint and make sure it boots into it properly. If you run into any problems, post back for help fixing them before installing KDE.
• To install KDE, run through same basic procedure outlined above except make sure you choose the second 20GB partition as your Root partition (the one whose mount point will be "/"). Also, you'll set the "Device for boot loader installation" to the same partition as that Root partition instead of "/dev/sda". Those are the only two differences. Set-up the DATA partition the same way as above and do not format the partition. (The KDE installer is slightly different looking, but procedure should follow along same lines as you went through in Cinnamon.)
• Because you installed KDE's grub to its Root partition, KDE Mint won't show up initially as a choice when you reboot. Boot back up into Cinnamon, then open a terminal and enter the following command to add the boot choice for KDE to the grub list:

  Code: Select all

  sudo update-grub

• That's it -- all should work now on next reboot. Good luck.

IMPORTANT NOTES:
1. Would be best to use the same username and password for both Cinnamon and KDE installs.

2. Your DATA partition will be auto-mounted on startup for both Mint installs, but you'll still need to use that tutorial I referenced before to set-up links from it to your Home folders in the new installations.

3. Until you set-up those links to the DATA partition, you can find the partition by opening your file manager and navigating to "/", then "mnt" (folder), then it will be seen as "DATA" (folder). So its full path name is "/mnt/DATA". After you've made your links, the folders can be accessed either through your Home folder or by navigating to "/mnt/DATA".

4. Symlinks are the easiest way to link the DATA partition to your Home, but remember to delete any folders that exist in Home that have the same name as one on the DATA partition before you attempt the symlink. For example, create a "Documents" folder under "/mnt/DATA", then delete the existing "Documents" folder in Home before symlinking. Otherwise it will attempt to have two folders of the same name in Home and that will fail. The way I do it is I put everything on the DATA partition except for the "Desktop" folder.


P.s. If you have problems accessing that DATA partition without entering a password, let us know. Also open a terminal and enter the following command to let us see how it is being auto-mounted:

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cat /etc/fstab

Copy entire output of command and paste it back here for us to look at. It should be an easy fix if you run into that problem.

[HACKNEYL]

WOW gold_finger!!!1
Thanks so much for the detailed reply and help!!!
This must have taken some time to type out - thanks!!!!!

It all makes perfect sense and the way you suggested seem good to me (with my limited knowledge).

Few questions just to clarify:
1. Regarding making new partitions: Just to make 1000% sure. I will leave Windows in its current (primary) partition. I will make one new Primary partition where all my DATA will be. I will make one new Extended partition where I will have the logical partitions for Cinnamon (root), KDE (root) and Swap partition. Is this correct.

2. Regarding where DATA files are: I will copy all my photos, documents and music (if possible) over to the new DATA partition I created. If I access Data file in Windows via the "file manager" in Mint and I make changes, will it then be saved back to the Windows section but remain unchanged in Mint and the other way around? On second thoughts, its probably worth just having one DATA partition that Windows and Mint can access. Is there any security risk or file corruption issues with this? Or any other problems? If so and if it is better to to keep the data in Windows but also copy it to Linux mint, then I will do that and it will not be to big a deal for me. I will probably work on Mint 95% of the time to test it properly in the view to ditch Windows eventually. Now a bit indecisive as to what to do here.

3. Regarding creating links tot the DATA partition: You say the DATA partition will be mounted but I still need to create links to it using the tutorial. From where in the tutorial do I need to start? My guess will be from:

"Take ownership of the mount point:

sudo chown -R yourusername: /mnt/DATA"

Is this correct or where from?

Thanks so much !!!!!

[gold_finger]

You're welcome. (Yes, took some time to type out -- once I got started I just kept going to try answering as many possible questions you might run into as possible. That's why it ended up so long.)

1. Regarding making new partitions: Just to make 1000% sure. I will leave Windows in its current (primary) partition. I will make one new Primary partition where all my DATA will be. I will make one new Extended partition where I will have the logical partitions for Cinnamon (root), KDE (root) and Swap partition. Is this correct.

Yes, leave Windows in its current partition -- shrunk down if necessary. (You'll shrink Windows from within Windows, not from GParted on live Mint.)

Then, boot with "live" Mint and use GParted to make a "primary" partition for DATA right next to the Windows partition, followed by large "extended" partition for the rest of the drive space. After that, right-click inside the extended partition and choose "Create partition" (or similar wording) and that's how you can create the "logical" partitions within the extended partition for the two Roots and the Swap (in that order). When all new partitions are set, click Edit -> Apply All Operations to finalize the changes.

2. Regarding where DATA files are: I will copy all my photos, documents and music (if possible) over to the new DATA partition I created. If I access Data file in Windows via the "file manager" in Mint and I make changes, will it then be saved back to the Windows section but remain unchanged in Mint and the other way around?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. Initially (after all installs are done), you'll still have your data files in Windows, but you'll have a new (empty) DATA partition also. In Windows, that will show up as another "drive" in Windows Explorer. In Mint (Cinnamon or KDE), it will initially only show up under where you mounted it in the file system -- which will be "/mnt/DATA". Will answer last question first, then go into more detail on this.

3. Regarding creating links tot the DATA partition: You say the DATA partition will be mounted but I still need to create links to it using the tutorial. From where in the tutorial do I need to start?

Yes, go ahead and start at:

Take ownership of the mount point:

sudo chown -R yourusername: /mnt/DATA

If you're having problems accessing the partition, follow directions in tutorial for opening the fstab file. Compare the UUID line for the DATA partition with the example one in tutorial for an NTFS formatted partition. If necessary, keep your current UUID but change the other parts of that line to match the example. Reboot after that to see if the new entry cleared up the access problem. If you're not having any access problems, don't bother changing anything in fstab.

You should be able to navigate with your file manager to /mnt/DATA and save files to your new folders without having to enter any password. Try saving a test file now to make sure it doesn't ask for a password. If it won't let you access the DATA partition and create new files/folders without a password -- stop. Enter these two commands in a terminal, then copy/paste the full output back here for us to see so we can figure out what the problem is:

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sudo blkid -c /dev/null
cat /etc/fstab

If all works okay, go into your Home folder and delete all of the folders except Desktop. After that, go ahead and create the symlinks. When done, you'll see those folders in Home again, but now they are symlinked to DATA. When you save a document to the Documents folder in Home now, it will end up on that DATA partition. (Boot into your other Mint and repeat same procedure -- delete current Home folders and create symlinks.)

Once you've got the folders setup on the DATA partition, you can boot into Windows and copy stuff from wherever you have it now on to that DATA partition. Anything in the DATA partition (put there from Windows or Mint) will be accessible to all OS's.

If you were talking about accessing the already existing data files on Windows (not on the DATA partition) when you're working in Mint -- that's different. Yes you can do that, but you'll need to find the Windows partition in the file manager and click on it to mount it -- then you can navigate around in there to find whatever you're looking for. If you're in Windows, you will be able to use the new DATA partition, but you won't be able to access any of the Mint root partitions.

If you want to copy some/all of your Windows data files over to that new DATA partition so they're available more easily in Mint (instead of you having to mount the Windows partition), then it would probably be safest to copy them over while you're booted into Windows. (I doubt it would cause problems to do it from Mint, but just to be safe do it from Windows.) From then on when you're working in Windows, if you want something to be available to the Mint OS's, just save to the DATA partition instead of your Windows home folder.

Hope this clears things up for you. Let us know how it goes.

[HACKNEYL]

Thanks for the reply and the detail of it!!!
Thanks so MUCH for your time!!!

Sorry for question 2 being a bit unclear but you have answered it so its GREAT.

All makes sense and I will now go ahead and do it all. Will let you know how it went.

THANKS AGAIN!!

[HACKNEYL]

Hi gold-finger!

Sorry I have been so quiet. Was hectic with work.

Well all went well and I have Cinnamon and KDE installed. Booting and working fine BUT.....
LINKING THE "DATA" PARTITION IS A NIGHTMARE!
I cant seem to take "Ownership of the mount point".

I have opened the fstab file.
I have kept my UUID the same and changed the rest of the line - No joy.
I have changed the entire line (including the UUID) to match that of the example in the tutorial - No joy.
This Is what I get in tye terminal:

kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p ~ $ sudo chown -R yourusername: /mnt/DATA
chown: invalid spec: ‘yourusername:’
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p ~ $ 1423xx
1423xx: command not found
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p ~ $ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="58B79CC0FE0DE735" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="3CCA520BCA51C1B6" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="CC28536228534A9A" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb3: LABEL="DATA" UUID="74AF2D432EA32817" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdb5: LABEL="CINNAMON" UUID="2093bc87-61df-4ff6-9366-aafb79ef4b1c" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb6: LABEL="KDE" UUID="194b3a0b-44db-4b5c-92bb-d8e5778de059" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb7: UUID="89ac968b-20e0-4559-9544-f2e5bc4c5280" TYPE="swap"
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p ~ $ gksu gedit /etc/fstab

(gedit:2581): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory

(gedit:2581): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.R867VX': No such file or directory

(gedit:2581): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory

(gedit:2581): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.XYMDWX': No such file or directory

(gedit:2581): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p ~ $


If I run cat /etc/fstab the this is what I get:
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p ~ $ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=2093bc87-61df-4ff6-9366-aafb79ef4b1c / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Mount DATA partition under /mnt/DATA
UUID=74AF2D432EA32817 /mnt/DATA ntfs-74AF2D432EA32817 /mnt/DATA ntfs-3g defaults,window_names,locale=en_US.utf8 0 0
# swap was on /dev/sdb7 during installation
UUID=89ac968b-20e0-4559-9544-f2e5bc4c5280 none swap sw 0 0

Before changing anything as in tutorial, this is what I had regarding the DATA part with cat/etc/fstab
# /mnt/DATA was on /dev/sdb3 during installation
UUID=74AF2D432EA32817 /mnt/DATA ntfs defaults,unmask=007 , gid=46 0 0

Hope it makes sense????
Your help will be greatly appreciates!!!

[gold_finger]

You need to use your own username in command to take ownership of the mount point, not the generic "yourusername".

Code: Select all

sudo chown -R kobus: /mnt/DATA

When you run gksu gedit /etc/fstab and get that warning message, does the gedit text editor open the fstab file or not? If it does, just ignore the warnings and edit the file. Replace whatever you've got for the DATA partition now with this:

Code: Select all

# Mount DATA partition under /mnt/DATA
UUID=74AF2D432EA32817   /mnt/DATA   ntfs-3g   defaults,window_names,locale=en_US.utf8   0   0

Save the file, then reboot. Use terminal command in tutorial to create your folders in /mnt/DATA; or you can just open your file manager and navigate to /mnt/DATA, then create folders in it that way if you prefer. Create symlinks by following steps in tutorial.

If for some reason the fstab line above doesn't work, edit the file again and try this line instead:

Code: Select all

# Mount DATA partition under /mnt/DATA
UUID=74AF2D432EA32817   /mnt/DATA   ntfs-3g   defaults,umask=007,uid=1000,gid=1000   0   0

NOTE: When you do this in KDE, the text editor is called "kate" and the command for editing the fstab file will be: kdesudo kate /etc/fstab. I don't use KDE myself, but I think that's the correct way to run the command. If I'm wrong, someone will chime in and say so.

[HACKNEYL]

And................ IT AL WORKS!!!!!!!

Thanks so much!!!
I am excited to now start playing. Cant wait to ditch Windows.

One intersting thing is that once I did all the Simlinks they also seem te be linked once I re-satrted and opend KDE - can this be???
If I use the terminal (konsole in KDE) and go through the tutorial it tells me:
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p:~ > mkdir Documents Downloads Music Pictures Videosmkdir: cannot create directory ‘Documents’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Downloads’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Music’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Pictures’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Videos’: File exists
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p:~ >

This is befor getting to Simlink it.
Intersting.....

Another thing is that my downloads does not appear in the "downloads" folder.
Im not sure where they are but can only find them throught the "recent" option. Not to big a deal as I just copied them.

I have a KDE question but will ask it on that forum.

Thanks for your help gold_finger - Wish I could buy you a drink!

[gold_finger]

You're welcome -- glad it worked out.

One intersting thing is that once I did all the Simlinks they also seem te be linked once I re-satrted and opend KDE - can this be???
If I use the terminal (konsole in KDE) and go through the tutorial it tells me:
kobus@kobus-ThinkCentre-M57p:~ > mkdir Documents Downloads Music Pictures Videos
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Documents’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Downloads’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Music’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Pictures’: File exists
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘Videos’: File exists

Once you made the new files/folders on the DATA partition they don't need to be made again. You only need to create the symlinks to those folders in KDE to have them show up in your Home directory. (So you'd go through process of deleting the existing KDE Home folders that would be duplicates of ones on DATA partition, then create the symlinks.) You'll also need to create the same entry for the DATA partition in the fstab file on the KDE installation. If you have any issues with permissions accessing the DATA partition while in KDE, then run the same "chown" command to take ownership of the mount point. (I don't think that step is necessary, but am not sure. Haven't used NTFS partitions myself in quite a while.)

Another thing is that my downloads does not appear in the "downloads" folder.
Im not sure where they are but can only find them throught the "recent" option. Not to big a deal as I just copied them.

I'm not sure exactly what's going on with that. Could be a number of different things. When you find one using recent items menu and it opens the file manager, take a look at the location bar in file manager to see where it is opened to. If downloading in Firefox, maybe go into settings and tell it to always ask you where to save things so you can control where they go -- Firefox -> Edit -> Preferences -> General (tab) -> Downloads (heading) -> "Always ask me where to save files".