On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 15:02 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Sunday 19 March 2006 12:41, Jeff Vian wrote: > >On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 17:30 +0530, Sumeet Pal Singh wrote: > >> HI > >> I have ubuntu 5.10 on my system and using FC3 since it was released. > >> I tried to install FC4 on my system by sharing the swap and /home > >> partition between FC4 and ubuntu. The installation went well. I did > >> not install KDE in FC4. > >> I was well aware of permission screw ups that this could lead to, > >> hence I did not create any user (The UID and GID of root is > >> preserved across Linux distros) > >> > >> I booted in as root and created a new user with UID and GID same as > >> on ubuntu. > >> Now I booted in GNOME and it was completely configured!!!! Moreover > >> gaim started and signed me in to all my accounts!!! This was first > >> time login... > >> > >> My question is that can is sharing /home okay for a long run or will > >> it lead to problems. > >> Also can other file systems like /usr be shared along with this and > >> if it can be then under what restrictions?? > >> If any one has done this please let me know. As long as the filesystems are compatible anything can be accessed. There is a _major_ caveat with sharing though. Directories containing the programs, libraries, and configs may break things quickly. /lib, /bin, /sbin, and their counterparts in /usr would likely not be good things to share since the binaries may not be compatible. Similarly, /etc could cause serious configuration problems. I don't think I would try sharing any of the system directories between distributions. > > > >AFAIK there should be no problems with sharing of /home. It is done > > all the time by many of us. > > > >You already took care of the issue of UID/GID values and that is the > >only thing I have ever had problems with in sharing /home between > >systems. > > There is one caveat I'd toss out Jeff, and thats that the options for > setting up a default ext3 system ARE different between FC stuffs, and > debian stuffs. In my case, the exact same version number of e2fsck > (1.35) refuses to pass or even check, the other installs ext3 > filesystems. So dual booting between FC4 and debian 3.1r1 is at best a > pita. Good point, and one I overlooked. I just assumed that ext3 was ext3. I never anticipated a difference between distributions. Thanks for the pointer, Gene. Filesystem compatibility is a must for sharing a partition or even for accessing the other distribution's directories. I have not used Debian so would not have seen that previously. > I'm next going to put Ubuntu-5.10 on that box in place of FC, so maybe > that will be self healing.
