I moved my entire home directory to a FAT32 partition so I can have access to files in both 7 and OpenSUSE. I was able to move my home directory without issue, but now there’s sort of a… issue. My username no longer shows up to be clicked on in the login screen on OpenSUSE, I have to type it in (I don’t mind, better security that way), but after typing in my username/password as usual, the login screen sits there doing nothing, until I switch to tty0 (by hitting Ctrl+Alt+F1) and then back to the X server (Ctrl+Alt+F7). After that, then my LXDE desktop loads perfectly fine. Any ideas on what’s going on?
I’m running OpenSUSE 12.1, 32bit. Any other info you folks need from me?
Any help is greatly appreciated! I’m really looking forward to using OpenSUSE all the time on my laptop!
Can’t do that FAT does not have the attributes needed in a real Linux system some things are faked which is fine for sharing but not real Linux usage. Get your home back to a reall Linux file system you can add a directory to a mounted Windows partition if you wan but don’t run any Linux programs against the data copy to the native files system to work with the data.
Clearly: Don’t do that! You certainly don’t need to access your deskop and other configuration files under Windows. And why using FAT32? Put your data, documents, pictures, whatever you want to access in both OSes on a separate NTFS partition, not in your /home partition. Further you can use symlinks to make your life easier.
On 2012-07-06 02:26, CamoYoshi wrote:
>
> I moved my entire home directory to a FAT32 partition so I can have
Move it back. Sorry, no: create it new, in a Linux native filesystem;
moving back is not possible, permissions and other metadata were lost.
You can not do that and expect things to work. At most you can store data
files on a windows partition, but not the basic structure of home (or system).
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Put your home directory back in a unix file system.
If you don’t want a separate partition for that, then put make “/home” a subdirectory of the root partition.
If you want other folders, such as “Documents” and “Music” to be on a Windows partition, that can work. And, as suggested by other, you can use a symbolic link so that the look to be in your home directory but are really in a Windows partition.
Also, as one of the others suggested, you are better making that shared windows partition NTFS rather than FAT32. Since the FAT32 partition already exists, you can run CONVERT in windows to convert it to NTFS. You might then have to edit “/etc/fstab” so that it can mount it as NTFS.
The advantage of NTFS: Better security, though that might not matter to you. Allows larger file sizes. Handles file date/time better.
Back when I was using FAT32, I noticed that the file time/date as seen in linux was different from the time/date as seen in Windows, and might change by an hour in the switch between standard time and daylight savings time. With NTFS you can have consistent file times.
Hm, ok. From what I recall however, Linux cannot write to NTFS; not sure if that is applicable here. I mainly wanted all the stuff that would get sent to my home directory by default be available from both Windows 7 and OpenSUSE. Thanks for the info. I may just save myself the hassle and do a reinstall of OpenSUSE.
Thanks for no “omg u idiot noob” responses as well. I get a lot of that sometimes.
There are two different kind of files in your user home directory: a bunch of config files, used to save your personal settings for desktop (such as KDE, Gnome, Xfce, etc) as well as any other program preferences, and your data, such as pictures, videos, emails and any kind of documents. What you want to share with Windows is your data. You should use a linux native file system for user settings and put your data on a separate NTFS partition. Your stuff get usually saved in subdirectories such as Documents, Pictures, etc. These subdirectories and their content is what you need to move to an NTFS partition, not the whole home directory. When you have moved a directory, create a symlink pointing to its new location in you home directory, so that Linux applications will find your stuff as if it would still be physically there.
On 2012-07-06 05:56, CamoYoshi wrote:
>
> I didn’t think of that; thanks for the tip. I will look into symlinks
> (it has been a while since I have needed those)!
It is precisely [hard|sym]links which the system needs and do not work in a
windows filesystem. And possibly files starting with a dot in the name.
Yes, Linux can write in NTFS just fine, albeit with higher cpu usage, and
without using Windows native permissions and ownerships.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 2012-07-06 04:16, nrickert wrote:
> Back when I was using FAT32, I noticed that the file time/date as seen
> in linux was different from the time/date as seen in Windows, and might
> change by an hour in the switch between standard time and daylight
> savings time. With NTFS you can have consistent file times.
Yes, FAT always uses local time, and it does not store what “local” means,
which time zone, nor summer/winter time. Thus the problems.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Linux file systems have a lot that is NOT available in NTFS and friends. Not only the time stamps are different, but ownership by user and group and the access bits that go with it is not implemented either. This will give you a lot of problems, securty ones not ruled out.
As said above, NTFS, etc are for exchanging data with non-Linux systems using e.g. USB sticks, or directly connected ones like cameras or even a multi booted non-Linux on the same hardware. They are in no way a replacement for native Linux file systems. You are then touching some of the basics that make Linux a Unix/Linux system.
On 2012-07-06 10:56, hcvv wrote:
>
> Linux file systems have a lot that is NOT available in NTFS and friends.
> Not only the tiome stamps ae different, bbut ownertship by user and
> group and the access bits that go with it is not implemented either.
> This will give you a lot of problems, securty ones not ruled out.
I know.
There is a version of the fat code that was made to allow installing Linux
on it: umsdos:
umsdos is an extended DOS file system used by Linux. It
adds capability for long filenames, UID/GID,
POSIX permissions, and special files (devices,
named pipes, etc.) under the DOS file system,
without sacrificing compatibility with DOS.
fs(5).
It was popular many years ago for some dual boot installations with limited
space.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
