hi, i have opensuse installed with seperation home partioin on same drive then i installed mint. now i want to share my opensuse home partition with mint so both distros use same home partition. is there practical way?
thanks in advance
When in both installations there is a separate file system for /home that should be possible.
But please be aware of the problems that may arise. Using applications
specially the Desktop) there can be version differences between the different Linus distributions. Versions might e.g. be upwards compatible, but not downwards with respect to configuration file and/or data (bases) used.
Most easy would of course be to change your /etc/fstab of Mint to let the /home mount use the device used for /home in openSUSE.
Adding to what @hcvv wrote, it is easy to share the same home partition but it is generally a bad idea to have the same usernames on multiple systems on the same /home, so that you can overwrite settings etc. from one system to the other.
If you set up, say, mint_hmdi user on Mint and leap_hmdi user on Leap they will have different /home/username folders, will not jeopardize each other settings but if they have the same user number (say, 1000 if they are the only user defined or the first default user defined in each system) they will have access to each other files and folders.
Well, you are correct, but I assumed (I know that is dangerous), that on both system the same physical (human) user would be defined (thus with the same UID) and thus use only his/her own data on both systems, booting on the one they like yo use today (Monday different from Saturday maybe?).
That is because else I do not really understand why to merge two different users home directory into one and the same /home file system.
But others may see logic here.
One example is a test system where, say, 5 distributions are multibooting, I define one user for each, say Test1, Test2,…Test5. All have user ID= 1000 in their respective distro. If /home/test1/ holds test files, those files can be used by Test2…Test5 as well while configs, possibly test results or whatever may remain separate.
I don’t know what the OP needs are, mine was just a setup to take into consideration.
Please note, that way the same partition is shared, but each user has its own /home/~/ directory.
Another option is a separate directory for user data to be shared, each user within each system has its own /home/~ and a few symlinks to shared data folders (used for instance to share data with Win* if the data folders are on a NTFS partition).
UID will be whatever this particular distribution defaults to during installation. Very few users know about it and if user needs to ask how to share filesystem, user most certainly is not aware. And even if by luck both distributions used the same UID, they need not agree on groups user belongs to nor on their GIDs.
I am afraid you are correct in all the things you say here.
But when one manages several systems that must share users (being it like this thread, or because of NFS, or …) a common user management is needed. And then the system manager has to understand these things, if (s)he likes it or not.
Hi.
Using different users is fine, especially if you use them yourself.
It’s true that the UID is the same, but the user folder is not: each user has its own folder and that is defined in the user configuration on each system (even in /etc/password). So you can have:
- user: pepitoleap home=/home/pepitoleap for Leap 15.6
- user: pepitotw home=/home/pepitotw for Tumbleweed
- user: pepitomint home=/home/pepitomint for Linux Mint
No problem at all. If there is a bug, it’s a huge bug that needs to be reported and fixed. Of course, the same user can access the folders of the users on the other systems and even delete them. But that’s the idea.
Anyway, we don’t promote fixes as a distrobox very much, I think.
the user is not the same between both distros, but home folder files system is xfs is it problem?
now 1- how i do it (sharing same home folder between suse and mint?
2- what if i reinstall mint or opensuse is it easier to do it? and how?
please guide me for both options
thanks
Sorry to say, but I assume the main problem is that lack a lot of basic Unix/Linux knowledge. E.g. about the one directory tree used in Unix/Linux, how it is built by adding file systems, users and groups and permissions. It is just an assessment I made, but it will make it not easy to let you do (and understand why you do them) things for you and for us. But we can try a start by looking at real information instead of story telling.
So please provide from your Leap 15.6 system (as root:
fdisk -l
lsblk -f
ca /etc/fstab
ls -l /home
And from your Mint system;
cat /etc/fstab
ls -l /home
===============
I have no idea if you did already post such computer output here on the forums, but please use this: Posting code or preformatted text - Using Discourse - Discourse Meta
And please post complete: include the line with the prompt and the command, all output en include at the end the line with the new prompt.
to begin with
1 Like
Most of installers create a folder with the same name of user account. If you are pepito, your HOME is /home/pepito.
But as they’re telling you, if you do that you can have problems with the applications settings.
Maybe you want to share Documents, Desktop, Images, and so? this is different, you don’t need use the same folder, only links and maybe setup the group setting.
first the reason i want one home folder so i dont have many patitions in my file explorer and i think to install even 3rd distro with same home partition so i have in my file explorer 3 os partitions with one home partition but if it practical and if not maybe i could go with seperate home partition. and remeber my home partion has already xfs file systems.
and here as you asked me outputs of the commands
THE NEXT IS MINT OUTPUT
slmmint@slmpc:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p5 during installation
# /boot/efi was on /dev/nvme0n1p1 during installation
UUID=90A5-050F /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
# swap was on /dev/nvme0n1p3 during installation
UUID=730eb1ba-9e79-487f-8155-5b5327a21266 none swap sw 0 0
UUID=d3d5a56d-5d50-4495-80b9-fe5f0d158fce / ext4 errors=remount-ro,x-gvfs-name=mint 0 1
slmmint@slmpc:~$ ls -l /home
total 4
drwxr-x--- 20 slmmint slmmint 4096 Oct 16 06:08 slmmint
......................................................
......................................................
THE NEXT IS SUSE OUTPUT:
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: KINGSTON SNV2S500G
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: DD440BD5-0C97-454C-83E2-8E118CE21100
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 2099199 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 2099200 211814399 209715200 100G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p3 211814400 249563135 37748736 18G Linux swap
/dev/nvme0n1p4 249563136 668993535 419430400 200G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p5 668993536 737353727 68360192 32.6G Linux filesystem
/dev/nvme0n1p6 737353728 737361919 8192 4M BIOS boot
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID
FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat FAT32 boot 90A5-050F
1010.9M 1% /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 btrfs 7c0ddaa0-79f8-490e-8f40-68e5a16b8d33 51.6G 47% /var
│ /usr/local
│ /tmp
│ /srv
│ /root
│ /opt
│ /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
│ /boot/grub2/i386-pc
│ /.snapshots
│ /
├─nvme0n1p3 swap 1 730eb1ba-9e79-487f-8155-5b5327a21266
[SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p4 xfs 9d7843a2-c817-43e1-accc-f38dfea8a693 99.4G 50% /home
├─nvme0n1p5 ext4 1.0 d3d5a56d-5d50-4495-80b9-fe5f0d158fce 15.7G
45% /run/media/slm-suse/d3d5a56d-5d50-4495-80b9-fe5f0d158fce
└─nvme0n1p6
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID
FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat FAT32 boot 90A5-050F
1010.9M 1% /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 btrfs 7c0ddaa0-79f8-490e-8f40-68e5a16b8d33 51.6G 47% /var
│ /usr/local
│ /tmp
│ /srv
│ /root
│ /opt
│ /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
│ /boot/grub2/i386-pc
│ /.snapshots
│ /
├─nvme0n1p3 swap 1 730eb1ba-9e79-487f-8155-5b5327a21266
[SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p4 xfs 9d7843a2-c817-43e1-accc-f38dfea8a693 99.4G 50% /home
├─nvme0n1p5 ext4 1.0 d3d5a56d-5d50-4495-80b9-fe5f0d158fce 15.7G
45% /run/media/slm-suse/d3d5a56d-5d50-4495-80b9-fe5f0d158fce
└─nvme0n1p6
thnaks always
Sorry, something seems to have been changed.
I see I made a typo. Od course for the openSUSE system we also need
cat /etc/fstab
A few riddles here.
First question.
Why did you not provide the several outputs in the same sequence as I asked them. Now you worked at random and the result is that some are missing and one is double. 
Also the copy/pasting between Preformatted text markers is sloppy. There are linebreaks were they should not be. Please type on a new line the three backticks (`), new line, do the paste there, new line and again three backticks.
Also commands are missing. prompt/command lines are missing. When you want us to take this serious, then please take it serious your self.
From what I see you have one (SDD) disk with six partitions:
- with a vfat used as EFI partition;
- with btrfs as
/file system for the openSUSE installation; - Swap (at least for Mint, naybe also for openSUSE);
- with XFS as
/homefor openSUSE; - with ext4, nw mounted for the desktop user
slm-userfor some reason; - no idea, the partition type seems to be BIOS boot.
So I see no separate file system for /home on the Mint system. Is that correct?
Missing is
ls -l /home
from the openSUSE system.
And I want also from both systems
ls -ln /home
thank you and so sorry for any mistake ,
first, i already noticed your typo and correct it, second, when i installed mint the installer asked to create boot partition. third, i tried to resolve the problem (shared home partition) by myself.
but now i decided to make seperate home partition for mint. and keep suse and install virtual machine to test other distro like arch, popus and so on.
also i think i learned new thing, as i created 1 swap partition which with suse cause i thghout that swap partition is for hypernation and if system shutdown it’ll be cleared and the other distro will use it.
any advice is appreciated before i make another mistake especially about partitions size root and home or any
thanks again and so sorry for any mistake or trouble i made.
Swap space is used for hybernation. So when you want to hibernate, you need Swap. As compression is used, you probably need less then full memory size.
And yes, Swap space can be used by both LInux systems on your hardware.
For the rest it is unclear to me what you new questions are. In any case it might be better to start a new thread (or threads, do not cluster several problems/questions in one thread)) with your new question(s) with a good title, exeact information and exact question or problem definition.
Unless you want to hibernate 
Ok.
Yes, if you shutdown/reboot you can use the same swap. If you hibernate, you need a separate swap.
Why is that?
Well, maybe a modern UEFI can handle this better, but you should expect that you don’t have much support for this in principle. After all, you’ll be using one system’s grub to boot, even though you’d rather have only one, e.g. Calamaris doesn’t offer a clear option to not install grub.
Which brings us to the problem of hibernating two different systems. If you hibernate one, when you boot the other you’ll kill the hibernation of the first one.
You should only enable hibernation on the system that has grub to boot that one. Then grub will boot directly on that system without asking. Or at least it should, I haven’t used it for a long time.
But if the BIOS allows you to bypass that (and boot another grub, for example) or if the configuration is not right, rebooting might boot the other system, because you forget, for example.