separate /home can be convenient
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| gus3 Dec 14, 2009 6:46 PM EDT |
My mother's Fedora system has had a separate /home for a while. Over two years, it has proven to be very convenient, because I can clobber, wipe, and re-install Fedora without worrying about her data. Another thing that eases upgrades is having two different partitions for Fedora, one for the previous version, and one for the current. The current will be installed onto a clean formatted partition, and then I can copy over the necessary files. Plus, if the current version has a show-stopping bug or hardware incompatibility, I can fall back with minimal penalty. (I have offered to set up a plan to backup her data. She turned it down. She's already experienced one total data loss, and she figures she survived that time, she can survive it again.) |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 14, 2009 6:48 PM EDT |
If they don't a) agree to a multiple-backup strategy and b) purchase the equipment and/or services needed to implement it, I cut the rope and let 'em drift. |
| gus3 Dec 14, 2009 7:05 PM EDT |
@Steven: It's my mother's system. Also, the only equipment she purchased for it is the flatscreen. |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 14, 2009 8:25 PM EDT |
at minimum, install a second hard drive in the box, drop an rsync script in there and either have it run with at, batch or cron, or just bring up a console and run it yourself whenever you happen to be over. Then if/when the main drive dies, at least you'll have that backup ... Or use a live CD with Clonezilla (I favor Parted Magic), plug in your own USB drive and clone the machine ... |
| flufferbeer Dec 14, 2009 8:30 PM EDT |
@gus3 I've had to take similar steps from a Win$uck$-centric approach. Everything system-related and as much else as possible in one huge logical C: partition (the "/"); non-system apps, all user-generated data, downloads, "other stuff" all in D:, E:. ... (in Linux terms, the separate /usr and the separate /home) One of the main differences I see is that Win$uck$ 1st pushes system optimizations such as swap space, driver updates, and service pack updates all within the huge C:, whereas Linux works best for me with additional separate partitions besides /usr and /home such as at the very least a swap part. 2c |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 14, 2009 9:18 PM EDT |
I'm no expert in Windows, but if you could put the user files on D: and not C:, I'd think that everybody and their mother would go that way. |
| techiem2 Dec 14, 2009 9:29 PM EDT |
You can. At least in XP, it was easy to redirect My Documents to another location. I assume you can do it in Vista/Win7 as well, but I haven't tried. |
| chalbersma Dec 15, 2009 12:41 AM EDT |
windows redirection is still buggy. Mainly because of apps that weren't built with that idea. |
| ABCC Dec 15, 2009 4:44 AM EDT |
The last time I struggled with Windows' buggy redirection I came across a blog post titled "The long and sad story of the Shell Folders key", http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/03/55532.a... If you'eve ever wondered why the registry is messy, that post goes a long way to explaining how that comes about. |
| hkwint Dec 15, 2009 7:12 AM EDT |
OK, this is entertaining: Last time I installed WinXP (for my sister), all Windows and system files ended on D:/, and only her music was on C:/. I don't even have the slightest idea why, but my sister said it was OK. Works like a charm. Hibernate and swap file btw. can be configured on different partitions as well, it's not that hard. Fun thing is, when I knew I wanted all my system stuff to be on D:/ I couldn't manage it, and when I did it was by accident. I wonder how many virusses don't work because they suppose WINDOWS and SYSTEM32 dirs are on C:/. On Linux, I've always had separate partitions for /opt, /var, /tmp, /home and /usr. Not for boot (because in my opinion there's no need for it, why do most distri insist on it? Just like having swap, I don't need and want no freakin' swap (Debian, get lost already!) My current scheme of partitions is just because OpenBSD, the first thing beyond Windows I used, recommended it that way. Not that I ever needed the separate partitions AFAIK, but it keeps the root partition small (300MB is enough most of the times). It was also nice to have my music on a separate partition, which I can mount read only, to be sure I don't destroy it by accident. However, changing ID3 tags is impossible that way, so now its rw again. The whole thing managed with LVM of course, because if /usr holds KDE4, kernel source trees and documentation (screwed up USE-flags was the reason), and also 100k files for portage it sometimes breaks the 10Gb limit and I have to extend it. |
| jdixon Dec 15, 2009 10:06 AM EDT |
> ...why do most distri insist on it? Because there was a time when it was necessary. Earlier versions of LILO could only access the first 1024 cylinders of the drive, or some such. It hasn't been necessary for a long time, and I don't think it's ever been necessary with GRUB. |
| caitlyn Dec 15, 2009 12:07 PM EDT |
I consider a separate /home essential. As gus3 points out you can reload your OS and the data almost always stays nice and safe and untouched. I also tend to have 2-3 distros on a system and I share /home between them. I use different user names so that one distro's configuration doesn't clobber another but a common UID so that one distro can access data from any of the others. It works out very well. @hkwint: It's still sometimes nice to have /boot separate. We went through that brief period where grub didn't support large inodes or the then experimental ext4 filesystem. Having a separate /boot allowed you to avoid those issues. The other solution, one which a number of distros implemented for one release, was to go back to lilo as the default (or only) bootloader. |
| gus3 Dec 15, 2009 12:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:> ...why do most distri insist on it?And I can think of one Unix case where it's still strongly advised: PA-RISC-based HP-UX. They have an OEM agreement with Veritas to ship VxFS, but boot files must still be in UFS for the OpenBoot PROM to find them. Hence, if vmunix isn't on a separate slice, the root partition itself must be UFS. I think a similar requirement for AIX applies, that vmunix can't be on a JFS slice. |
| bigg Dec 15, 2009 12:40 PM EDT |
I save all of my data on a USB disk (with frequent backups). I've had more problems losing data on hard drives than on USB. Plus I can always carry it with me. This is not for everyone, depending on how much you travel, but it works great for me. As a rule the USB is only in the office or at home. I have other USB for that purpose. |
| tuxchick Dec 15, 2009 1:35 PM EDT |
Right now I am hating computers and distri (what a great word!) with great passion, and wanting all of them to evaporate. An incurable itchy pox and chronic dysentery on all of them. I spent most of the last month trying to work around idiotic Linux cr@p, like KDE4 cunningly removing or hiding the very functions I use the most and copying the worst of Gnome, 64Studio crashing like a car with no brakes every five minutes, PCLinuxOS running like it's carrying heavy cargo, Ubuntu Studio competing for the absolutely worst, most poorly-organized system menu and half-baked application installations (install the config files and man pages but not the app! Brilliant!), and good old reliable Debian still-- after several years --- not getting rid of the exasperating nspluginviewer crash message that pops up in Konqueror and won't effing go away until you click on it. Very fun when it does this a few gazillion times per day. I am THIS CLOSE to giving Mac a serious try. Dear Ubuntu, may I suggest precisely where you can place /home? thxbye. |
| bigg Dec 15, 2009 2:21 PM EDT |
You're not running Slackware. (That's a joke.) I think the problem is that a lot of distri are more interested in adding new features than in making sure they work. |
| azerthoth Dec 15, 2009 3:04 PM EDT |
meh. seperate /home across multiple Distro's can get messy quickly, and caitlyn brought up exactly why, UID. I use a simpler solution. I still go in and mount extra partitions and such in the fstab, but these are data partitions only, shared across all distro's. If I want a config in /home/$USER then chmod and ln -s works just wonderfully. I dont have to worry about incompatible configs across distros all being mucked into the same /home, nor do I have to worry about conflicting UID's. Separate /home is a wonderful theory that does not work so well in practice when you start playing with wildly divergent distros. I never recommend making one, instead I recommend that you save nothing in /home/$USER that you dont have to, and instead make separate data partitions. @TC I see a common theme to all the distros you mentioned with the exception of PCLOS. |
| jdixon Dec 15, 2009 3:34 PM EDT |
> You're not running Slackware. Everyone please notice that I didn't succumb to temptation. :) |
| azerthoth Dec 15, 2009 3:37 PM EDT |
Proud of you jd, and notice I didn't mention Gentoo (or derivation) either. :) |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 15, 2009 3:58 PM EDT |
I'm the first to acknowledge that dual-booting with a single /home partition shared among 2 or more distros is sure to cause some problems in configuration files, but it's great to have the ability to have a second distro on board when trouble strikes, or in the case of a few of us, to have a BSD OS dual-booting that can access the Linux partitions; in that case I'd rather have it mount the partition with /home as its sole occupant. I'd rather not mess with mounting the / partition. |
| tuxchick Dec 15, 2009 4:03 PM EDT |
I still multi-boot a lot, and I get around the problem of conflicting dotfiles in /home by letting each distro have its own /home just for those, and my data files go on a separate partition. Easy peasey and no config worries. True az, there is a common thread there :). It's hard to break the Debian habit because their package repos are gigantic. They have everything. I'm also testing the current OpenSUSE. There is much to like, there is also much to vex. Sighhhh. |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 15, 2009 4:28 PM EDT |
Separate /home directories on the respective root partitions for configuration, common partition for data shared across the distros - I like that idea a lot. |
| bigg Dec 15, 2009 6:19 PM EDT |
tc: If it's the repos you want, have you tried Mandriva? There cannot be much if any difference in the repos. Mandriva's are pretty deep. |
| Scott_Ruecker Dec 15, 2009 7:01 PM EDT |
I have been using a separate /home partition on all my machines for some time now..I won't do an install without it. I can bork the install a million different ways without destroying my data.. |
| azerthoth Dec 15, 2009 9:21 PM EDT |
Scott, get your UID one number off and your /home/ will shoot you in the foot. Its usually fine if your staying with the same distro family. However say you do Debian and Gentoo multiboot and arent paying attention ... *poof* things go heinously wrong in a rapid fashion. |
| hkwint Dec 16, 2009 5:10 AM EDT |
TC, may I join your Linux-blues? Yesterday my (three year old?) Firefox profile became 'hosed'. Never experienced this before, but here's what happened: Whenever I try to close FF, it freezes my complete PC, music starts to 'scratch', all LED's on the keyboard start to blink, system is unresponsive (kernel oops somewhere?) and I can repeat this error. Killall instead of Ctrl+Q still does the job though, when trying to close FF. When I use --safe-mode (or something like that), the problem is gone. This means there's a FF plugin that's so buggy that it can halt my whole system! You'd almost opt for Chrome. But I don't like Google, so thank god there's Opera. The remedy here: Manually try and find out which plugin breaks FF. Everytime it breaks, I have to use the power button to reboot! How's that better than Windows? Also, the Enter-key didn't work in the URL bar. Turns out my profile is hosed. Proposed solution: Manually migrating data to a new profile, including re-installing plugins, manually copying sqlite-databases of bookmars / passwords, and than plug&pray. Then I haven't told about the Xorg issue which Alt-Tabs out of the blue on random occasions without me having pressed anything. You type a word, and halfway typing the word you are in another window. Really screwed. And I haven't mentioned Xorg 'crashes' from time to time - also out of the blue at random moments. Nothing in the logs though! I'm a bit desparate. And I haven't mentioned Gentoo package system (Az, I'll mention it) becoming more and more complex until the point where it's almost impossible to 'emerge' 300 packages without an error (yesterday I set a new record: 100 packages and no errors! First time in three months though). But it's still better than Debian, where it's almost impossible to mix stable with unstable without sacrificing a goat, donatign money to the FSF church and waiting until at least 4 stars align on the horizon. It gives you 'scores' of how likely it is that the solution apt proposes may work, and when those scores are 200 below zero (!) you know you're screwed. Apart from configuring new kernels: It's just plain huge and can't be done by a single human anymore, unless you're unemployed for the next millenium. What I do nowadays: Take the kernel config of Sabayon, copy it to Gentoo. Then, when updating to some new version: Run with the oldconfig command. Now, here comes the best part of kernel configuration, and the tip of the week (remember!): Press and hold enter until kernel config is done. Now, of the 5000 new options you have all the default ones. And KDE4 coming with no 3-to-4 migration tool, only manually migrating is possible - is another showstopper for those who ilke to actually get some work done. Luckily, I don't have to choose because I can't afford a Mac. Nonetheless, I say you might try Syllable or Haiku first before switching. If you forget some of the fanboys (PP anyone?) it seems it can be pretty OK for 'easy desktop jobs'. One piece about why the bazaar 'may' fail, which I really enjoyed reading, is here: http://www.modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/b/2007/theses_on_free_s... Especially the part about when the wind blows, the cathedral still stands but the bazaar is gone. |
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