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[Resolved] User folder seems to be in both / and /home

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Eumaios
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[Resolved] User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#1 Post by Eumaios »

Hello,

When I installed Debian 11 KDE, I chose the option for separate / and /home partitions on the SSD. Using Dolphin, I just noticed that my Home folder with my user folder in it appears in both / and /home. (I mean, well, obviously it would be present in /home. But I'm surprised to see it also in /.)

Is my Home folder being stored twice, once on the / partition and again on the /home partition? Did I do something wrong during installation?

(Perhaps this question better belongs in Beginner Questions?)

Thank you,
Eric
Last edited by Eumaios on 2021-10-29 04:37, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#2 Post by p.H »

Can you post the output of the following commands run with your user account ?

Code: Select all

echo $HOME
df -hT /home
ls -lia / /home

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#3 Post by NorthEast »

Is my Home folder being stored twice, once on the / partition and again on the home partition?
When this occurred for me, the /home on the root partition was empty, and my files were in the separate home partition that I'd created.
Since I wanted a separate home partition, I mounted the separate home partition onto the root home partition with an /etc/fstab entry like the following:

Code: Select all

UUID=xxxx    /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
where the UUID references the separate home partition. The command: "lsbllk -f" should provide the relevant UUID.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#4 Post by Eumaios »

Hello and thank you for your replies. Attached please find a screen shot of the requested output.

The Home folder in my Root partition does not appear to be empty. At least, I can navigate to all of its contents and open them from there. In Dolphin. I should add, I installed Debian KDE, and Dolphin shows Home in both partitions.

Thank you,
Eric
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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#5 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Please just copy/paste the text, not a picture.
AdrianTM wrote:There's no hacker in my grandma...

cynwulf

Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#6 Post by cynwulf »

/home is the mount point.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#7 Post by p.H »

dilberts_left_nut wrote: 2021-10-27 06:14 Please just copy/paste the text, not a picture
Yes please.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#8 Post by Eumaios »

Code: Select all

eric@Phaiakia:~$ echo $HOME
df -hT /home
ls -lia / /home
/home/eric
Filesystem                    Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/Phaiakia--vg-home ext4   43G   31G  9.0G  78% /home
/:
total 77
     2 drwxr-xr-x  19 root root  4096 Oct 12 14:21 .
     2 drwxr-xr-x  19 root root  4096 Oct 12 14:21 ..
    12 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Sep 10 10:56 bin -> usr/bin
     2 drwxr-xr-x   5 root root  1024 Oct 12 14:21 boot
537402 drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 Sep 10 11:00 .cache
     1 drwxr-xr-x  20 root root  3620 Oct 28 10:34 dev
522242 drwxr-xr-x 138 root root 12288 Oct 28 10:34 etc
     2 drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Sep 10 11:02 home
  2130 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    30 Oct 12 14:21 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-9-amd64
    14 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    30 Sep 10 10:56 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-8-amd64
    15 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     7 Sep 10 10:56 lib -> usr/lib
    16 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     9 Sep 10 10:56 lib32 -> usr/lib32
    17 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     9 Sep 10 10:56 lib64 -> usr/lib64
    18 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    10 Sep 10 10:56 libx32 -> usr/libx32
    11 drwx------   2 root root 16384 Sep 10 10:56 lost+found
130562 drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Sep 10 13:58 media
391682 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Aug 14 20:32 mnt
    19 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Aug 14 20:32 opt
     1 dr-xr-xr-x 298 root root     0 Oct 28 10:34 proc
    20 drwx------   5 root root  4096 Sep 10 11:55 root
     1 drwxr-xr-x  29 root root   760 Oct 28 10:51 run
    25 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root     8 Sep 10 10:56 sbin -> usr/sbin
391684 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Aug 14 20:32 srv
     1 dr-xr-xr-x  13 root root     0 Oct 28 10:34 sys
     2 drwxrwxrwt  23 root root  4096 Oct 28 11:28 tmp
391685 drwxr-xr-x  14 root root  4096 Sep 10 11:00 usr
     2 drwxr-xr-x  12 root root  4096 Sep 10 11:00 var
  2129 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    27 Oct 12 14:21 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-9-amd64
 74674 lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root    27 Sep 10 11:00 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-8-amd64

/home:
total 28
      2 drwxr-xr-x  4 root root  4096 Sep 10 11:02 .
      2 drwxr-xr-x 19 root root  4096 Oct 12 14:21 ..
2621441 drwxr-xr-x 20 eric eric  4096 Oct 28 10:34 eric
     11 drwx------  2 root root 16384 Sep 10 10:56 lost+found

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#9 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

And using code tags, like I've just done for you, makes it readable.
AdrianTM wrote:There's no hacker in my grandma...

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#10 Post by Eumaios »

Thank you; I have no idea what code tags are. I'm not a developer, but completely self-taught, trying very hard to put together a Debian/GNU/KDE system that will replace Windows. I appreciate the voluntary help you all give here, and I'm trying to do what I'm asked to do in order to provide sufficient information. And I appreciate enormously the community effort that goes into developing the Linux kernel, the KDE desktop environment, and the Debian distributions.

Your patience and help is appreciated.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#11 Post by Eumaios »

cynwulf wrote: 2021-10-27 16:44 /home is the mount point.
So /home as the mount point is different from the home folder? I'm sorry to drag down the conversation to this level. I've done a LOT of reading to try to understand Linux, I've followed the Debian installation guide, I've read man pages, but there's still a lot I don't understand.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#12 Post by NorthEast »

I have no idea what code tags are.
You could have a look at:
https://www.bbcode.org/reference.php
and check out the examples of the "quote" and "code" tags which are the main ones you're likely to use.

On the /home problem, the output looks like an LVM installation which I'm sorry I can't help with.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#13 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Eumaios wrote: 2021-10-28 04:57I have no idea what code tags are.
https://www.phpbb.com/community/help/bbcode
or just use the buttons at the top of the "Full Editor" view (not shown in the "quick reply" box).
Eumaios wrote: 2021-10-28 05:02 So /home as the mount point is different from the home folder?
A 'mountpoint' is simply a directory (folder) to which another filesystem is "mounted", and any dir can be a mountpoint.

Your filetree starts at / and contains all the files/dirs available to the system, including a dir called home

The filesystem on your Phaiakia--vg-home volume gets mounted on the /home dir and the files/dirs it contains are then available at /home/<whatever>

You could equally create a dir called /my/cool/house and mount it there if you want, but /home is conventional and most things will expect your data to be under there.

This is different from windows where "drives" have letters and are treated as separate "devices".
Probably not helping, is that most gui filemanagers replicate this paradigm, showing "drives" in the left pane. and transparently mounting them (to somewhere like /media/<username>/<volumename> or such) when clicked on.

Also filesystems can be mounted in multiple places at once, and be available via several paths.
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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#14 Post by p.H »

Eumaios wrote: 2021-10-28 05:02 So /home as the mount point is different from the home folder?
First you need to clarify what you mean exactly by "home folder".
The "/home directory" is just /home.
A "user home directory" is usually a directory under /home, like /home/eric.

Here, /home is a mountpoint for a filesystem contained in a LVM logical volume, not a partition. /home/eric is a directory in that filesystem and is eric's home directory. It is not in /.

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Re: User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#15 Post by Eumaios »

p.H wrote: 2021-10-28 10:29 First you need to clarify what you mean exactly by "home folder".
Perhaps what I should have asked is whether the bits that constitute the information that makes up the contents of my Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos is being stored twice, in both / and /home.

Your answers tell me that, no, it's not being stored twice. As I understand, I can get to my files through either / or /home because . . . it's installed as a logical volume? Or because they're all a part of the same tree beginning with /?

But anyway, it's clear to me that the bits are not being needlessly duplicated.

Thank you all very much! And thank you also for the links to the explanations of code tags!

Sincerely,
Eric

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Re: [Resolved] User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#16 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

For further info on file paths, this looks like a reasonable primer/overview.
https://opensource.com/article/19/8/und ... aths-linux
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Re: [Resolved] User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#17 Post by p.H »

Eumaios wrote: 2021-10-29 04:36 As I understand, I can get to my files through either / or /home because . . . it's installed as a logical volume?
No, it has absolutely nothing to do with /home being a logical volume.
What do you mean exactly by "get to my files through /" ?
I suspect you may be confused by some graphic file manager abstraction.

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Re: [Resolved] User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#18 Post by Eumaios »

p.H wrote: 2021-10-29 17:49 What do you mean exactly by "get to my files through /" ?
I suspect you may be confused by some graphic file manager abstraction.
I'm running Debian 11 KDE. I installed the OS using the installer's option to store different folders (/var, /temp, /home, and /) on separate (LVM) partitions.

When I open Dolphin file manager, on the left side under Devices are the four folders/partitions, along with /boot. In Dolphin, I can navigate to my user files (such as the word-processor files in Documents or the photographs in Pictures) by selecting EITHER / --> /home --> /eric . . . OR /home --> /eric . . . . That is, I can get to my files either by beginning from the / "Device" or from the /home "Device" in Dolphin.

Given what others have explained, yes, this does sound like an abstraction of the graphic file manager.

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Re: [Resolved] User folder seems to be in both / and /home

#19 Post by p.H »

IIUC Dolphin shows each permanent filesystem separetely in the left panel. This is so wrong and misleading IMO. Anyway the left panel is not /.

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