Changing distro - moving my home folder

From what I have understood, trying out different Linux distros is one of those things that a Linux user just needs to do now and again.
So what is the “best” way of keeping your home folder intact? Should I just copy the whole home folder to a separate storage space, install a new distro (I’m thinking going from Ubuntu to Suse) and then just past it in the newly installed distro? Or are there some other, more “refined” methods?
I thought one’s home folder contains a lot of config and settings files, but they would surely just be applicable to the original distro!?

I know I can try out several distros via live CDs, which I have done, but when you’ve taken that next step and actually want to install another distro as your main Linux operating system.

Any advice appreciated!

If you have your /home folder on a separate partition, any well-behaved distro should leave it untouched. But I always back up my /home folder before a new install just in case. Haven’t needed it so far.

If you have multiple users make sure you enter them in the same order or their user numbers may be different.

The config settings in your /home folder mostly apply to the programs you use; so it is useful carrying these over.

While all of the above is true, look at the different wording used.

The OP talks about “your home folder”, meaning imho the several /home/<username> directories on the system (may be there is but one).

john_hudson talks about the */home *directory (which often and prefered is on a seperate partition), that would contain all of the above “users’ home directories”.

And yes, making an extra copy of those to an external medium befor such a major operation is not a bad idea, though I assume you do have backups allready.

I have found from experience that a users home directory can and does cause problems with different distros or even versions of one distro when on a common partition.

What I do is have each users home under each distro/versions root (/) partition. I also have a separate partition called /common. Under /common I have moved the data directories (Documents, Pictures, Music, etc…) from the original install. Then, each time I install a new distro/version in it’s own partition,I create symlinks from the users home to the appropriate directory under /common.

Tom

Separate /home partition is the best solution. The only problem I’ve encountered is KDE4 specific when switching between Kubuntu and Opensuse. Kubuntu still puts KDE4 config files in old KDE3 folder /home/user/.kde. Opensuse uses /home/user/.kde4. When switching from Kubuntu to Opensuse, you have to copy /.kde contents to /.kde4 to keep your KDE user settings. The Gnome user settings are not affected by this.

On 2010-06-29 18:16 GMT OllieGab wrote:

> From what I have understood, trying out different Linux distros is one
> of those things that a Linux user just needs to do now and again.
> So what is the “best” way of keeping your home folder intact? Should I
> just copy the whole home folder to a separate storage space, install a
> new distro (I’m thinking going from Ubuntu to Suse) and then just past
> it in the newly installed distro? Or are there some other, more
> “refined” methods?
> I thought one’s home folder contains a lot of config and settings
> files, but they would surely just be applicable to the original
> distro!?

Maybe, maybe not.

If you are testing distros, you should start with new home, ie, new
settings, so as to learn how different distros set up things.

Then, have a different partition for your data and work, which you
share between distros.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))

I usually tar my entire home directory for taking a backup. Installing the /home directory on a separate partition does not do much good for testing multiple distros since if you try to use the same home dir with another distro - it might overwrite many of your existing configurations and in some cases might pose problems. One example I can think of is if the version of apps you installed in one distro and other are different - their config files also may differ and may not be compatible.

As others have said I also have a separate /home partition from / (root). You will have to watch userid, groupid, permission and configuration file changes between distros.

However, if you have enough free space and a good cpu on your OpenSuse installation you might consider installing Virtual Box (Hypervisor) and just create virtual installs of the other systems.
You could then install and check the different distros as virtual os running on top of OpenSuse. I’ve had LinuxMint9, Fedora 13, WinXpSp3 as virtual OS fully functional with network sharing, Internet access, etc. Caveat nVidia video drivers don’t support Xen at this time and the VESA video driver, limits features of some OS (Fedora 13).