shared Home folder?

Posts: 57
Subito Piano
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
#1
I am wondering if Mepis 7 and antiX 7 could share the same Home folder.

I have a 1GB Athlon w/ 384 MB RAM and i love Mepis 7 but it just bogs down at times. Maybe i just need to stop running Kontact all the time and switch to the Mozilla Suite or something, idk... I've used antiX on another HD but am thinking of changing to the following setup on the same HD: Mepis installed on the first partition, 500MB swap partition, Home on it's own partition, antiX on the last. I would install antiX using the same user name i have with Mepis and keep the Home files.

I read this could mess up some of my settings...is this the case?

If that won't work, can i wipe out Mepis, install antiX and keep my leftover home folder from Mepis 7? Or do i have to wipe out some configuration files to do that?

Thanks!
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#2
Your /home folder contains config files that are used to setup everything when you bootup. If you have config files for two or more OS's in the same place you might create some confusion. This is what I do to avoid it.

I use a /root for each OS of course and then a small /home for each. Just enough to contain the configs plus a little extra. I then create another partition just for my stuff. This partition gets mounted into the /home ie:/home/me/data. The /swap is shared by everything. This way I can reinstall or change an OS and never have to worry about loosing my data. I also put backups of some config files in /data partiton so all I need to backup is the one partition to be safe.

eriefisher
Posts: 57
Subito Piano
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
#3
OK - i think i get it. You just have your"me" directory automounted on boot?
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#4
That's right. You already have /home/username so just create a folder there called /data. Then adjust your /etc/fstab so that the /data partition is mounted in /home/username/data. Extra partitions are usually mounted under /mnt or /media and have to be mounted manually, This way it gets mounted on boot and is just a click away.

eriefisher
Posts: 57
Subito Piano
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
#5
tanks! __{{emoticon}}__