triple boot
Windows installed first (of course)
wiping linux partitions and starting from scratch ( 11.3 and Ubuntu 10.4-LTS) all 64bit
my goal is to set up a swap partition, and one partition for each distro, but both sharing a /home partition.
I do apologize but I just don’t have the knowledge to ask a question straight forward on this one:
is this going to be as easy to setup as I think it will be ? ( like when you set them up to share a swap)???
Is there anything I should know ahead of time before going into this???
Any advice is very much appreciated, and again, I am truly sorry that I can’t be more clear with my questions, I just don’t know what to ask, or how to ask it.
I don’t see any reason why you can’t have a common /home partition for more than one distro of Linux. My thinking is it would work best if one used GNOME, while the other did KDE, or something like that. You can’t have two different versions of say Amarok working together as the older may be unable to use the newer database. In general, duplication of like applications need to be the same version or close enough to use the same setup and this may be the part that turns out to be the most unmanageable. Surely the same SWAP partition can be shared between distributions. You need a compatible grub menu system and separate / root file systems. (also each root user will be separate, but that should not be a problem). I say go for and let us know if you let the smoke out of your computer. lol!
I’ve been sharing a common home between multiple *nix oses for years now. I create a unique home directory for each account ( e.g. /home/charles, /home/charles-os113, etc) and use softlinks to share common elememnts, such has $HOME/bin.
Hi there,
I have a similar set up where I keep separate home directories but share files and content. The reason that I do this that I might run mandriva and OpenSuse and kde / gnome would have different setttings. Also I have found that the plugings for firefox do not always match.
My home directories:
readyp@lxhome:~> ls -l /opt/md2/home/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 3 readyp home 4096 2009-07-10 02:03 mdk_2009.1_Spring_x64
drwxr-xr-x 4 readyp home 4096 2009-11-05 21:38 mdk_2010.0_x64
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2010-07-09 23:35 mdk_2010.1_Spring_x86
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-02-22 12:18 OpenSuse_11.2_x86
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-08-08 13:21 OpenSuse_11.3_x86
readyp@lxhome:~>
hello readyp and thanks so much for providing such a great amount of detail. I suggest that you might want to use the code editor button as it helps place a large amount of information into a scroll box. Here is an example on part of your post here:
Then in the directory itself
readyp@lxhome:~> ls -la
total 2624
drwxr-xr-x 63 readyp home 4096 2010-09-10 12:37 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-08-08 23:13 ..
drwx------ 4 readyp home 4096 2010-09-08 23:12 .adobe
-rw------- 1 readyp home 3590 2010-09-10 12:07 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 1177 2010-08-08 23:13 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-01 19:32 .beaver
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:13 bin
drwxr-xr-x 8 readyp home 4096 2010-09-02 14:07 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-01 17:04 .cddb
drwxr-xr-x 16 readyp home 4096 2010-09-01 23:24 .config
drwx------ 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-11 16:29 .cups
drwxr-xr-x 8 readyp home 4096 2010-09-02 09:45 cxoffice
drwxr-xr-x 5 readyp home 4096 2010-09-02 09:45 .cxoffice
drwx------ 3 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:14 .dbus
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-07 12:26 Desktop
-rw------- 1 readyp home 23 2010-08-09 00:28 .dmrc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 readyp home 31 2010-08-12 13:45 Documents -> /opt/exports/private/Documents/
drwxr-xr-x 7 readyp home 4096 2010-09-09 22:44 Downloads -> /opt/exports/private/Downloads/
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 315 2010-08-08 23:13 .dvipsrc
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-10 14:58 .fontconfig
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:14 .fonts
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 508 2010-09-07 17:37 .fonts.conf
drwx------ 5 readyp home 4096 2010-09-10 11:46 .gconf
drwx------ 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-10 12:37 .gconfd
drwxr-xr-x 22 readyp home 4096 2010-09-07 21:09 .gimp-2.6
-rw-r----- 1 readyp home 0 2010-08-17 20:02 .gksu.lock
drwx------ 10 readyp home 4096 2010-09-07 12:05 .gnome2
drwx------ 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:30 .gnome2_private
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 18251 2010-08-08 23:13 .gnu-emacs
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 1425 2010-09-01 17:22 .grip
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 58 2010-08-19 16:12 .grip-bladeenc
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 65 2010-08-19 16:12 .grip-cdda2wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 66 2010-09-01 17:22 .grip-cdparanoia
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 62 2010-09-01 17:22 .grip-lame
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 100 2010-08-19 16:12 .grip-oggenc
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-08 22:56 .gstreamer-0.10
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 206 2010-08-10 22:53 .gtk-bookmarks
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 338 2010-08-08 23:14 .gtkrc-2.0-kde4
dr-x------ 2 readyp home 0 2010-09-10 11:46 .gvfs
drwxr----- 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:14 .hplip
-rw------- 1 readyp home 318 2010-08-09 00:28 .ICEauthority
drwx------ 3 readyp home 4096 2010-08-26 15:34 .icedteaplugin
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 861 2010-08-08 23:13 .inputrc
drwx------ 3 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:14 .kde
drwx------ 4 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:28 .kde4
drwx------ 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-24 22:25 .kino-history
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 2971 2010-08-24 22:25 .kinorc
-rw------- 1 readyp home 15740 2010-09-02 23:09 .kshrc_history
lrwxrwxrwx 1 readyp home 16 2010-08-16 16:44 Music -> /opt/exports/public/Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-09 00:28 .nautilus
drwxr-xr-x 3 readyp home 4096 2010-08-13 17:43 .netx
drwx------ 3 readyp home 4096 2010-08-29 23:29 .neverball
drwx------ 3 readyp home 4096 2010-09-08 19:15 .ooo3
drwxr-xr-x 4 readyp home 4096 2010-08-24 13:34 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-19 22:14 .ppracer
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 1028 2010-08-08 23:13 .profile
drwx------ 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-10 11:46 .pulse
-rw------- 1 readyp home 256 2010-08-08 23:32 .pulse-cookie
drwxr-xr-x 3 readyp home 4096 2010-09-06 00:17 .rcc
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-08 23:14 .skel
drwx------ 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-10 09:33 .ssh
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 3166 2010-08-24 22:25 .tagtoolrc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 readyp home 32 2010-08-08 23:31 .thunderbird -> /opt/md0/working/dot_thunderbird
drwxr-x--- 2 readyp games 4096 2010-08-10 20:53 .trackballs
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-08-14 17:42 .turboprint
lrwxrwxrwx 1 readyp home 32 2010-08-16 16:46 Videos -> /opt/exports/public/Music_Videos
-rw------- 1 readyp home 12312 2010-09-02 21:36 .viminfo
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 1002 2010-08-08 23:13 .vimrc
-rw------- 1 readyp home 534 2010-09-10 11:46 .Xauthority
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 1940 2010-08-08 23:13 .xim.template
drwxr-xr-x 2 readyp home 4096 2010-09-10 11:46 .xine
-rwxr-xr-x 1 readyp home 1446 2010-08-08 23:13 .xinitrc.template
-rw------- 1 readyp home 113197 2010-09-10 13:01 .xsession-errors
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 45646 2010-08-19 10:35 .y2log
-rw-r--r-- 1 readyp home 281 2010-08-19 10:30 .y2usersettings
readyp@lxhome:~>
Basically you paste your code into your message. Highlight only the code you want in a code box and press the “#” editor option. You must be using the advanced editor mode for this to work. When you move your mouse over the # symbol the editor says "Wrap
tags around selected text". This can help make long messages more readable and keeps the forum editor from messing with your text.
Thank You
i don’t know how it works if you have one /home and initially have the
latest and greatest of both Ubuntu and openSUSE and (say) Thunderbird…
remember: /home/[you]/.thunderbird will house all the settings,
mail, etc etc for the Thunderbird in Ubuntu AND openSUSE…
so, what happens if Ubuntu ‘rolling upgrades’ the Thunderbird to a
higher level (4.x) while openSUSE continues to use 3.x AND the version
upgrade was all about an ‘improved’ file format or something…maybe a
wholesale change in the config files to make v4 really ‘fly’…so,
what happens the next time you boot to openSUSE (or vice versa)…
think about the ramifications of that: i mean if i were doing my
doctoral thesis in astrophysics in OpenOffice…and along came a huge
paradigm switch in OO.o software and it gobbled my thesis just because
i booted the other OS…hmmmmmmm…
or GIMP, Blender, etc etc etc…any creative undertaking might not
like the shared /home approach…
for me, it seems hard drive space is too inexpensive to tempt that fate.
Maybe this is over my head… I don’t want to have to deal dependency, and setting issues…
My intentions were to use gnome and gnome, and was thinking that by having only one OS going at a time, It would just access the /home partition (or directory) and everything would be fine (again, like the swap).
I was also under the impression that my biggest problem would be the fact that ubuntu uses a Debian package system…
subcook69420 I don’t think it matters just which package manager you are using once an application gets installed. But it can be a problem trying to run two different versions of the same application looking at the same home area. I did notice one suggestion of just using a different user name for each different OS. That would surely work I would say. You could still use the same Home Area and a common swap area while maintaining separate installations of each Linux version/type.
Also just a different name in the os’s may not be enough the OS use the UID number to identify users. These should be different otherwise there may be ownership issues. Most Linux distros will assign the first user to UID 1000. It may not be a problem but it is something you should be aware of.
As written above, package management would be the least of your issues.
First step is finding partitions to install the multiple operating systems, openSUSE, Ubuntu and the /home.
You can create a physical file and make that file a swap partition. IOW, you can create 2 files to be used as swap files for each of your installed operating systems. Install openSUSE and Ubuntu without SWAP partitions, create the swap file, modify the /boot/grub/menu.lst to resume from the physical swap file you created.
IMHO, I think you’d need to create or use a common group to both operating systems, like, ftp, wheel, hopefully users, for unique users to use the common /home without affecting permissions.
OTOH, you could use the same userid and group as long as you set the octal permissions userid:group to be the same effective octal permission (1000:100), for example in openSUSE.
Ask all the questions you need before you start anything, especially replies you don’t fully understand.
openSUSE has Hypervision virtualizaton, (Windows 7 above Home Premium also has virtualization) when installed can run virtual operating systems. That is you can run openSUSE, with a virtual Ubuntu running at the same time. Great for testing new releases and software, although sometimes the sound hardware doesn’t cooperate, but for the most part the virtual OS runs as well as the OS installed on a partition.