partitioning questions

[Ludootje]

This is my current situation:
the / partition;
the /home/ partition;
and a win2k partition.

What I want to do:
add another partition by making the /home/ partition smaller.

What I'd like to get:
a win2k partition;
a / partition with a linux distro;
another / partition with another linux distro;
a /home/ partition which is being shared by the two distros.

My questions are:
1. Can I have 1 /home/ partition for 2 (different) distros?
2. Can I resize and add a partition without an app, so just edit a /etc/partitions.cfg (just inventing a file, I suppose that doesn't exist ;))?

[ 29 January 2002: Message edited by: Ludootje ]

[mychl]

Originally posted by Ludootje:
<STRONG>This is my current situation:
the / partition;
the /home/ partition;
and a win2k partition.

What I want to do:
add another partition by making the /home/ partition smaller.

What I'd like to get:
a win2k partition;
a / partition with a linux distro;
another / partition with another linux distro;
a /home/ partition which is being shared by the two distros.

My questions are:
1. Can I have 1 /home/ partition for 2 (different) distros?</STRONG>

I'm not sure about this one. Probably, but then your settings might have to be the same for both distros...
<STRONG>
2. Can I resize and add a partition without an app, so just edit a /etc/partitions.cfg (just inventing a file, I suppose that doesn't exist ;))?
</STRONG>
I don't think you want to do that. I think Suse is one of the distros you are talking about and I think that during SuSE's install you might be able to do this. But definately DON'T edit any files to add the partition. You need to use fdisk at the least.


Another way you might want to handle this is to use 3 Primary partitions
1 Distro1 (hda1)
2 Distro2 (hda2)
3 Win2k (hda3)
4 Extended Partition (hda4)
In an extended partition you can have 5 Logical partitions

Extended Partition
...Logical Partitions
.....1 /home for distro1 (hda5)
.....2 /home for distro2 (hda6)
.....3 SWAP (hda7)
.....4,5 whatever (hda8, 9)

The only problem this might have is that I'm not sure if you can have swap on a logical partition. Maybe someone else knows.

Good Luck

[ 29 January 2002: Message edited by: mychl ]

[Ludootje]

Thanks mychl.
I don't really care about swap, it's mostly that I'd like to know if it's possible/difficult to have one /home/ for 2 different distros.

[viscia]

I'm willing to bet that using a single /home directory is fairly trivial, you'd just have to specicify the same hd partition in each case, and whenever you add a user you'll need to add her in both distros and make sure you use the same user number.

[demian]

Originally posted by Ludootje:
<STRONG>
My questions are:
1. Can I have 1 /home/ partition for 2 (different) distros?
</STRONG>
No problem at all. Just make sure you don't chose to format the home partition during install ;)
<STRONG>
2. Can I resize and add a partition without an app, so just edit a /etc/partitions.cfg (just inventing a file, I suppose that doesn't exist ;))?</STRONG>
No way. Well, you could probably try to hack your mbr with a hex editor and see what happens :p

But why don't you want to use available resizing tools?

[bdl]

This has been brought up before, and I really don't see a problem with sharing a /home directory, you can even do it with NFS across the network if you want to. The only problem I see is in having conflicting versions for your config files, like having two distros with different versions of Gnome, keeping the config files in the same '/home' dir. They tend to overwrite each other and it can get messy. Other than that, if you're willing to keep an eye on things and keep a pretty 'basic' directory structure, I'm sure it'd be fine.

[Ludootje]

demian: 'cause i have to install those, and that'll probably give like tons of depandencies, so it would be easier if i could simply edit a file :)

bdl: what's NFS exactly?

[Ludootje]

come on d00ds...

[Strike]

No, you MUST use an application to repartition your hard drive. It has to do with how the data is physically stored on the drive.

For fun, let's suppose you could set it in a config file. The config file is on a filesystem which occupies a all or part of a partition on a physical drive. So, to get to the file, you'd have to know where the file is. Which means you have to know what partition to search on, but ... without that file we don't know what the partitions are! :) So, it doesn't make sense that way.

[bdl]

Originally posted by Ludootje:
<STRONG>
bdl: what's NFS exactly?</STRONG>

NFS: Network File System. You can setup a machine on your network as an NFS server and export filesystems (HDD mounts, CDROMs, etc) across the network so other systems can use them just like a local drive. Good if implemented properly and if it's on a fairly closed network; otherwise it can be a security risk (IMHO). I only mention it because one of the LNO members at one time set his /home directory up as an NFS export and used it from several different machines on his LAN.

NFS HOWTO (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/NFS-HOWTO.html)

[PimpHolic]

Originally posted by bdl:
<STRONG>This has been brought up before, and I really don't see a problem with sharing a /home directory, you can even do it with NFS across the network if you want to. The only problem I see is in having conflicting versions for your config files, like having two distros with different versions of Gnome, keeping the config files in the same '/home' dir. They tend to overwrite each other and it can get messy. Other than that, if you're willing to keep an eye on things and keep a pretty 'basic' directory structure, I'm sure it'd be fine.</STRONG>
yea i would agree there, for example having licq in 2 distros, the config files would conflict
heres an idea:
lets say you want to have mandrake and slackware on the same system
slackware's /home could be 1 gb and be located at /hda5
mandrake's /home could be 5 mb and be located at /hda6
then you could mount /hda5 (the slack home directory) and keep it as /home2 on your mandrake system, then use it as home directory in slack/mandrake
just a thought :)

[Ludootje]

Originally posted by PimpHolic:
<STRONG>Originally posted by bdl:
This has been brought up before, and I really don't see a problem with sharing a /home directory, you can even do it with NFS across the network if you want to. The only problem I see is in having conflicting versions for your config files, like having two distros with different versions of Gnome, keeping the config files in the same '/home' dir. They tend to overwrite each other and it can get messy. Other than that, if you're willing to keep an eye on things and keep a pretty 'basic' directory structure, I'm sure it'd be fine.</STRONG>
yea i would agree there, for example having licq in 2 distros, the config files would conflict
heres an idea:
lets say you want to have mandrake and slackware on the same system
slackware's /home could be 1 gb and be located at /hda5
mandrake's /home could be 5 mb and be located at /hda6
then you could mount /hda5 (the slack home directory) and keep it as /home2 on your mandrake system, then use it as home directory in slack/mandrake
just a thought :)
yes, that might be good idea, thanks.