Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

pedruchini · 2019-02-25 00:29:36

When dual-booting, I usually create a home partition for each distro. Since both Bunsenlabs and MX-Linux are based on Debian Stable, I wonder if they could share the same home partition. I suppose they would have the same versions of the installed software. Is it advisable to do that?

Last edited by pedruchini (2019-02-25 00:30:15)

PackRat · 2019-02-25 02:03:43

Not advisable. Even though your user names may be the same, there are usually some permission issues that cause problems. It's better to create a data partition that each distro will share. You can even mount it into the separate home partitions if you want.

Bearded_Blunder · 2019-02-25 03:56:36

If you're careful you can create users in each where the uid & gid match, and avoid permissions problems, I still wouldn't want to share my home between two distros though. I would consider making individual directories like Downloads, Documents, other stuff, possibly even thunderbird & firefox profiles (or selected bits of them) symlinks to folders on a shared partition having matched up uids & gids though. When creating user on distro 2 you specify uid & gid to match distro 1. It's quite doable, but more involved than just creating users with matching names.

Last time I did something like it, the second distro I created a temporary user during the install, then added that carefully matched user later & removed the temporary one. Just sharing ~ ends up with wirdnesses with some software wanting different configs in each distro even with the permissions solved.

Making it work is a learning experience, not something to expect to just work right off.

ohnonot · 2019-02-25 05:59:03

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

Making it work is a learning experience, not something to expect to just work right off.

ah, quoteworthy. would you mind?

Last edited by ohnonot (2019-02-25 05:59:27)

Bearded_Blunder · 2019-02-25 06:15:26

Pretty much anything I say on a public forum is public domain, why would I mind?

pedruchini · 2019-02-25 10:42:54

Thanks to all of you.
I'm a longtime linux user but still learning.
I hope these useful recommendations will help other users.

damo · 2019-02-25 11:15:29

Another problem with sharing $HOME between distros is that dotfiles may be overwritten, or just cause breakage.

My method is what some others ^ use - share a data partition, and replace various directories with symlinks eg

rm -r Documents && ln -s /mnt/data/Documents Documents

EDIT: [rant]Why are $HOME dirs capitalised? It is a PITA![/rant]

ohnonot · 2019-02-25 20:22:34

damo wrote:

rm -r Documents && ln -s /mnt/data/Documents Documents
EDIT: [rant]Why are $HOME dirs capitalised? It is a PITA![/rant]

that's optional!

$> cat ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs 
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/downloads"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/images"
XDG_CONFIG_DIR="$HOME/.config"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/video"
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/desktop"

damo · 2019-02-25 20:31:35

^ I know, but I have to decapitalise the defaults

ohnonot · 2019-02-25 20:38:39

^ well you do it once, it's done forever.

#1 2019-02-25 00:29:36

Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#2 2019-02-25 02:03:43

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#3 2019-02-25 03:56:36

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#4 2019-02-25 05:59:03

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#5 2019-02-25 06:15:26

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#6 2019-02-25 10:42:54

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#7 2019-02-25 11:15:29

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#8 2019-02-25 20:22:34

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#9 2019-02-25 20:31:35

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

#10 2019-02-25 20:38:39

Re: Sharing the home partition with mx-linux

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