I'm interested in having a dual boot system, and I want both (Linux) operating systems to share a partition. In this case, to store videos. Is that possible?

Yes it is very common to do. I have three OSs on my machine, and I have a separate disk mounted as /Data, but you can do the same thing with a partition. I store all my files, videos, and music there.

All you need to do is list the partition in the /etc/fstab file of each OS. I use the same line in each fstab, like this.

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Yes ,its possible and very much easy. In windows create a partition and format with vfat and automountmount that somewhere by fstab and thats all.

But acraig said he doesn't have any Windows systems.

Sorry for that.
acraig can achieve it. If space is left,he can just create a separate partition with ext3/2 or vfat, from any of the both OS and can mount that on both, its for clean data sharing otherwise if dont have any space left just mount the used ext3/ext2 partition . Mount partition to a directory by,

and add the entry in /etc/fstab on both OS as:

and thats all you shared the partition on both.

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Thanks guys! The mount command and fstab changes worked.

One other thing... The partition shows up on my desktops the way removable media does. Is there a way to make it an "invisible" part of each system, like all the other partitions?

If it's mounted in /media/ it will show up as a removable disk. Unmount it and remount it in /mnt/, or somewhere under /. Don't forget to change /etc/fstab.

Thanks for the response, but the partition isn't mounted in /media. I mounted it in /mnt and fstab reflects that. I did, however, mount the partition in /mnt as the label and directory name, not as sdb1.
Could that be the problem?

No, that's not the reason you're seeing an icon on your desktop. It's possibly a setting in your desktop manager, which one do you use, KDE, Gnome or some other? Which Linux are you using that the icon pops up? Does it go away if you unmount the directory?

Try looking in the desktop settings, or right click on the icon, to see what might be causing that to happen.

I have Dreamlinux 3.5 Gnome Desktop Edition. I could not find a setting for desktop icons. And there is no section called desktop manager/settings in the drop down menu.
There is a Gnome Control Panel, but nothing there allows you to control what desktop icons will appear. Only sessions, appearances, resolution, etcetera.

No, before it was mounted it did not show up on the desktop. But as soon as I partitioned and formatted the disk it showed in the disk mounter (a panel applet) as an unmounted volume.

I right clicked the icon and looked at the properties, as you suggested, but did not see anything that might affect desktop placement except this, under the tab "volume"...

Mount Options: rw errors=continue data=ordered

I have no idea what it means, but it is possible to change these mount options.

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned that this new partition is on a secondary drive. Is it even possible to make such a partition a real part of the "file system"?

I ask because when I right click on the file system icon in "computer" it has no "drive" or "volume" tabs, but it does have a "link" tab (with the address "file:///") and the new partition does not.

I would not change those settings. It won't have any effect on the icon.
Yes, mounting another disk is quite common and it becomes part of the whole file system.
That sounds like a Gnome setting somewhere. I can't help with that as I use KDE and not Gnome desktop, sorry.

Why not simply have a single /home partition, and use it for all OS's?

--- rod.

Because some of the hidden configuration files+directories may not be compatible between different versions of their programs.

That's okay. I appreciate your trying. Thank you!

The purpose of the new partition is a separate and larger space for my videos and music, but shared by two operating systems, so I can access it from both.