#1 2018-05-11 08:52:42

dbvolvox

Member

From: England

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 111

Website

Save /home on new install

My BL Hydrogen desktop is all in one partition. Do you think I could create a new partition and install Helium into that thus preserving my existing /home?  Or is such an enterprise doomed from the start?

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johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,673

Website

Re: Save /home on new install

If you've got plenty of disk space, I would suggest creating a new partition for Helium, installing a fresh system there and then just copy in files from the old partition's /home as needed. Mounting the Hydrogen partition and linking in the whole existing /home would probably create complications.

Peoples' preferences vary, but my favourite setup is to have a separate large partition to hold non-config files like documents, media, scripts etc, and mount it in the system as /data. Then new systems on new partitions can use the same data.

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DeepDayze

Like sands through an hourglass...

From: In Linux Land

Registered: 2017-05-28

Posts: 1,901

Re: Save /home on new install

keeping your /home on a separate partition is a better plan so that you don't lose your data whenever you reinstall.

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johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,673

Website

Re: Save /home on new install

keeping your /home on a separate partition is a better plan so that you don't lose your data whenever you reinstall

A lot of people do this, and it has the advantage that most apps will work right off if you're creating a new partition with an upgraded version of the same distro. However, sometimes apps' config synatax changes, old obsolete config files pile up, you might be trying a completely different distro, and I prefer to start a new install with a fresh set of config files, and just merge in what's needed from the old partition.

However, agree absolutely about keeping data in a separate partition.

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...elevator in the Brain Hotel, broken down but just as well...
( a boring Japan blog (currently paused), now on Bluesky, there's also some GitStuff )

Introduction to the Bunsenlabs Boron Desktop

hhh

Gaucho

From: High in the Custerdome

Registered: 2015-09-17

Posts: 16,177

Website

Re: Save /home on new install

The only scheme I've ever used is /.

My data ain't that precious, though, and hard drives have been huge for years.

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I don't care what you do at home. Would you care to explain?

johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,673

Website

Re: Save /home on new install

^The advantage of putting data on a separate partition is that when you upgrade or reinstall you don't have to back everything up - just mount the data partition when you're done, and everything is there as before.

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...elevator in the Brain Hotel, broken down but just as well...
( a boring Japan blog (currently paused), now on Bluesky, there's also some GitStuff )

Introduction to the Bunsenlabs Boron Desktop