[SOLVED] change home folder location

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youngdaddytc

[SOLVED] change home folder location

Post by youngdaddytc »

hello, i use a dual boot configuration with windows 7 taking up the bigger partition and thus most of my files (music, videos, etc) are stored there. i'd like to change my default linux mint 15 home folder location so that it points to C:\Users\Troy\Documents.

unfortunately i haven't found any documentation on how to do this. any suggestions?

setup:

sda1 windows 7 x64 ntfs 418GB
sda2 ext4 linux mint mate x64 39GB
sda3 linux-swap 8GB
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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karlchen
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Posts: 18176
Joined: Sat Dec 31, 2011 7:21 am
Location: Germany

Re: change home folder location

Post by karlchen »

Hello, youngdaddytc.

You may not be aware yet, but in fact you do not really want to make your Linux Mint home folder location point to a Windows NTFS partition. You really do not want to do so. :wink:
Mint uses an ext4 filesystem (default, or another Linux specific filesystem format). Your Mint home folder is located on your Mint partition. All Linux access rights apply to your home folder.
Windows uses NTFS filesystems (default). All NTFS filesystems are not part of your Mint system. Linux access rights do not apply here.
Mixing parts of your Mint system, e.g. a homefolder, with your Windows system is a really bad idea, for purely technical reasons.

Therefore you want to keep your home folder where it is now, on the Mint partition, folder /home/troy.
You may also want to make sure that your Windows NTFS partition is automatically mounted by Mint. -
What you may do is, create a bookmark in your favourite graphical Linux filemanager (Nemo, Nautilus, Thunar, Caja etc pp) pointing to the desired location on the Windows NTFS partition.
Such a bookmark will be available in most "open" and "save" dialogue boxes and inside the filemanager itself. So navigating to the Windows "Troy\documents" folder will be really simple and quick.

Kind regards,
Karl
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js3915

Re: change home folder location

Post by js3915 »

Also might want to look at making a symbolic link of your home folder into the directory of /home... It doesnt actually copy the files its simply like a link.. I dont know how well that would work but would put everything into one folder..

Code: Select all

sudo ln -s /location/of/windows/folder/ /home/username/windows7
you would just need to ensure the windows partition is mounted on boot
kukamuumuka

Re: change home folder location

Post by kukamuumuka »

altair4 has made an exellent tutorial .. :wink:
http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=74321&p=431358&hilit=%2Fwindows#p431358
[2] Auto Mount at Boot using rc.local

You can use the same manual mount command ( without the sudo ) and add it to /etc/rc.local right above the "exit 0" line:
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
mount --bind /Data/Documents /home/altair/Documents
mount --bind /Data/Downloads /home/altair/Downloads
mount --bind /Data/Pictures /home/altair/Pictures
exit 0
youngdaddytc

Re: change home folder location

Post by youngdaddytc »

js3915 wrote:Also might want to look at making a symbolic link of your home folder into the directory of /home... It doesnt actually copy the files its simply like a link.. I dont know how well that would work but would put everything into one folder..

Code: Select all

sudo ln -s /location/of/windows/folder/ /home/username/windows7
you would just need to ensure the windows partition is mounted on boot

thanks for all the responses everyone. i think i'm going to go with this solution. like he said it basically puts a hot link of that windows ntfs location into my home folder whereby i can navigate to everything quickly.

i actually prefer not to use windows at all but it is required to run certain games i use regularly. my other option was to have a separated partition for both operating systems to share... a bulk storage partition. unfortunately my laptop didnt respond too well to that setup, and it created havok with the new uefi bios that is installed.

anyway, problem solved. thanks guys.
kevinwilcox

Re: change home folder location

Post by kevinwilcox »

Karl, I hope you don't mind me coming in on the back of this with a possibly related question. Does the same apply to using an NTFS partition for my Thunderbird profile? I've just posted a question on the newbie forums about this but basically t'bird won't 'remember' that I've determined for my profile to be on my old D drive, which is NTFS so while it'll work during setup when I reboot it says it can't find my profile and fails to load my inbox etc. And if this is the root of my problem, what file system should I reformat to? (I can easily backup all the existing data on D, which I treat as a data-only drive, to an external drive, in order to do this).

thanks
Kevin
karlchen wrote:Hello, youngdaddytc.

You may not be aware yet, but in fact you do not really want to make your Linux Mint home folder location point to a Windows NTFS partition. You really do not want to do so. :wink:
Mint uses an ext4 filesystem (default, or another Linux specific filesystem format). Your Mint home folder is located on your Mint partition. All Linux access rights apply to your home folder.
Windows uses NTFS filesystems (default). All NTFS filesystems are not part of your Mint system. Linux access rights do not apply here.
Mixing parts of your Mint system, e.g. a homefolder, with your Windows system is a really bad idea, for purely technical reasons.

Therefore you want to keep your home folder where it is now, on the Mint partition, folder /home/troy.
You may also want to make sure that your Windows NTFS partition is automatically mounted by Mint. -
What you may do is, create a bookmark in your favourite graphical Linux filemanager (Nemo, Nautilus, Thunar, Caja etc pp) pointing to the desired location on the Windows NTFS partition.
Such a bookmark will be available in most "open" and "save" dialogue boxes and inside the filemanager itself. So navigating to the Windows "Troy\documents" folder will be really simple and quick.

Kind regards,
Karl
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