Installed 13.1 fresh on prev 12.2, has old user's home folder and linux~ folder - can I remove?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I installed openSUSE 13.1 from liveUSB on a laptop that used to have openSUSE 12.2. I thought I was blowing everything away and starting fresh but now I see there are two folders left in the home folder:

/home/linux~
/home/myolduser

Two questions:

  1. Can I remove these folders? (There is no longer a user name “myolduser”)

  2. What is the “linux~” folder?

#2

When you want to start completely afresh, did you tell the installer during the partiotioning phase to format /home anew?

When your /home is not “formatted” (read: there is made no new file system upon it), the old data is still there. Thus no wonder the home directory of myolduser (strange username though) is there. You can of course check the date/time of it and look into it to see if it is realy what you think.

Did you during install let the installer creater a new user? When yes, with another username? When yes, it is strange that that username does not show in /home as a user’s home directory.

In other words, to explain what you see now, a better description about what you did at installetion is needed (i do keep book on what I do during an install).

#3

Hello,

did you accept default installer suggestion to make separate home partition?

post here mount command output, that will explain a lot,

mount

regards

Czeslaw M.

#4

The “myoldusername” is just a standin for the actual username in my post. The folder actually is named what the old username was. Pretend my old username was “joedoe” and my new username is “userincharge” and the home folder now looks like:


/home/joedoe
/home/userincharge
/home/linux~
/home/lost+found

I understand the “userincharge” and “lost+found” folders, but what’s the “linux~” folder? And can I delete the “joedoe” folder now that I created a new user?

For install, I simply walked through the installer with default settings. I checked that it was doing a separate “home” folder, and then just accepted all the settings. I thought it would wipe everything else away. I suppose I can reinstall to start over clean, but if everything is clean except that old user’s folder, I’d prefer the easier route of deleting that.

#5

Hi, one more command output please

sudo -s fdisk -l

sudo -s cat /etc/fstab

“-l” is not capital leather L

, you don’t tell as if you make separate partition for users home’s directory"/home"

this

/home/linux~
is probably some sort of servis/program user for old installation or maybe some test user with you delete an keep it’s home directory.

Regards

Czeslaw M.

#6 
Disk /dev/sda: 128.0 GB, 128035676160 bytes, 250069680 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xa6521e50

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048     4208639     2103296   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2   *     4208640    46153727    20972544   83  Linux
/dev/sda3        46153728   250068991   101957632   83  Linux



/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SanDisk_SSD_U100_128GB_122863316515-part1 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SanDisk_SSD_U100_128GB_122863316515-part2 /                    ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SanDisk_SSD_U100_128GB_122863316515-part3 /home                ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 2

Also, I just reinstalled opensuse 13.1 and this time made sure I checked to reformat all disks (they showed in red) and now it no longer has the old user’s folder but still has that weird “/home/linux~” folder. Yes, I made a separate “/home” partition.

One thing: Even though I reformatted and did a “clean” install, after it was done installing, after restart (without the liveUSB) it was already logged in to my secure wifi network! How did it remember the SSID and password? It seems not to be doing a true clean install.

#7

Ok,

now we have clear view,

you can safety delete ‘*/home/linux~’ * and other folders, except this one who have the same name like your account login name.

Installer is able collect many information from preview installed system if it was OpenSuse, it is normal behavior of installer,
if you like make really clear install you need make 2 time’s boot from installation media,

  1. boot , goto to partitioning step with installer, delete all partition, save it at partitioner menu the restart pc
  2. boot, same like fist but now you don’t have any information on hdd’s, you can setup partition’s again and this be a clean install.

regards

Czeslaw M.

#8

Thank you. Do you know what caused the “linux`” folder to exist?

Why isn’t it a clean install when I’m reformatting all the drives/partitions?

#9

Hi,

i don’t have idea,

hmm… maybe some kind user for live session from live media iso.

regards

Czeslaw M.

#10

FWIW, I recently wanted to move from openSUSE 12.2 to 13.1, and I used a network install disk to do so. It was a clean install, but I elected to keep /home (although I backed it up first). About 90 minutes later the installation was complete

#11

The ‘linux’ username folder is created by the live cd for the temp live session before you install
It can be safely removed

#12

Thank you, that clears it up. Any idea why the post-install process leaves it there?

#13

I reported this as a bug yonks ago. So no, no idea.