multiboot partitions philosophy

[GogoAkira]

I wan't to know any aspects why is it suggested on debian page that if multiboot then do separate tmp var home '''etc...''' partitions. So far I have win7, debian, then I wan't to add arch. I understant sharing the tmp home or swap partition saves space, but is there any other aspects that this is better, I wan't to learn the file system, so anything technical or philosophical, I will try to understand it, topic doesn't have to be on scope exactly it can vary to both positive and negative extremes directions a 100%, or another dimension is fine too.

[buntunub]

I have installed too many to count OSs and Linux Distros on different HDDs, and always use shared /home, /tmp, and /swap. I have never encountered an issue with this. Of course, the advantage do sharing /home is that your files are persistant. The real question should be, why not do it?

[GogoAkira]

ahhaha thanx, yes why not, haha, then you answered my question, that is why it is made this way so it can communicate and not to chinese wall itself around hehe, unless it wants to hehe... ok then pretty soon i should have arch too, should i put another one extremely slightly different since they'r not that different besides ubuntu, and i dont' really have a need for centos, mainly i liked arch because of the build with git, that was pretty cool........ so if u have a suggestion heh, please do suggest on...

[buntunub]

It makes no difference. Linux = Linux, and all Distros use the same basic file system structures, generally.

[dasein]

I wan't to know any aspects why is it suggested on debian page that if multiboot then do separate tmp var home '''etc...''' partitions.

Can you provide a citation? It'd be helpful to understand exactly what's being advocated.

[GogoAkira]

hahah dasein, sorry, and thanx, it said "multi-user" i had 15 tabs open on the same subject hehe selective reading............. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ ... 03.html.en

[GogoAkira]

the only excuse i have for having windows is in case i sell the laptop, and i broke my stable debian trying to install komodo edit using instructions online, and i didn't learn how to compile yet, nor properly use git, boo,,,,,,,,,, can someone give me some links on how to compile stuff like apps or kernels, heh, i just really actually wan't komodo heh

[dasein]

hahah dasein, sorry, and thanx, it said "multi-user"...

No problem. That's why I asked for the cite.

The answer is clear now, yes?

[GogoAkira]

yes but, heh,i have another question now.

i've reflexivelly followed the instructions from arch now hehe, and i didn't think about it iv'e swapon the sda swap partition, but then heh, i've mounted sda i made on /mnt, then i mkdir-ed /mnt/home there, then i mounted my second partition to home, and i've already istalled the base, heh,,, i didn't think i just did it, but i shouldn't have made the second partition at all for home, instead i just should have mounted the already made one from debian to /mnt/home, but i didn't maybe i'll do it all over again some other time............ then if my root partitions are from 20-40 GB i should just have one big home partition for all my distros right?......... linux people mostly like to help others, this is good, heh, thanx

[GogoAkira]

ah i broke my mbr, repair disks won't go anywhere but the advertised toshiba whatever heh, bad arch.... i shouln'd have --force the grub, why didn't i keep the debian grub it was already there. aj aj aj i don't wan't to install windows again it's 3 hours hahah

[thanatos_incarnate]

Regarding sharing /home, I have discovered that some distro I've tried along the lines left a certain config file that doesn't seem to make any problmes anywhere, except in OpenSUSE where most login managers won't let me log in at all. I haven't discovered the reason behind it and also don't care, so... Other freshly created users could log in just fine.
But yeah, if you share a /home partition across distros, these things might happen.

[dasein]

...if you share a /home partition across distros, these things might happen.

And when/if it a problem arises, it's a serious PITA to diagnose, and fixes have a way of "mysteriously" vanishing. Agreed that it's best avoided.

For my money, the smartest way around this issue is to leave /home/<user>/ and /home/<user>/Desktop/ on the root FS for each distro, and symlink Documents, Music, etc. to a shared data directory. It takes only a few seconds to set up, and pays back almost immediately.

[thanatos_incarnate]

Another good thing to do is to avoid software with needlessly complicated config files, especially those that reinvent the wheel every other release.