How - Kubuntu Dapper with separate /home partition
 

I am reinstalling Kubuntu Dapper after installing a new drive. I want to install it on the old drive, and while at it, thought I might use a separate partition for /home as suggested in lots of places. The only problem is, I've seen the "how to" posts, but can't find one now that I need it.

Can anybody provide a link to a post on how to install with a separate /home partition?

Thanks!
Optiker

Since you are installing dapper - step through the install procedure as usual, but go slowly. The part where you can manually partition your drive will be obvious.

You should be able to use the advanced partitioning option from the Kubuntu desktop cd.

All you have to do is to create a partition and tell the installer to use it as /home. Make the partition "ext3" which is the default.

What do you have on your new hard drive? I suggest that you make your /home partition as large as possible.

--Ian

I went ahead and installed, and as you both said, partitioned for a /home partition - no problem. This is on the old 80 GB HD. I have two Ext3 partitions for /root and /home respectively, and a 2 GB swap partition - I know that's probably way overkill on the swap with a GB of RAM, but I will probably be reinstalling numerous times before I settle in.

However, problem! When I rebooted, grub never came up. It booted straight into WinXP. No idea what's going on. I use an Ext3 utility in Windows, so am able to look at the Kubuntu partitions, and the /root partition looks normal. In fact I went in and edited the /boot/grub/menu.list to default to Windows as for now, I am still defaulting to Windows.

There is one "drive" that I don't understand. It's labeled H:, and has two folders in it: /lost+found which is empty, and optiker (my login name) which contains four files: .bash_logout, .bash_profile, .bashrc, and Exampes. Noi idea where it came from or why.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Optiker

The easiest way to fix this is to boot up the live cd and open up a terminal. Mount your root partition, (this should be done automatically, and copy the grub files from the CD into /boot/grub:
Assuming that your /boot is mounted on /media/hda1.

Again assuming that your root parition is /dev/hda1

I hope this helps
--Ian

Ian...I guess I'm not sure how to do this because I don't know for sure how to mount my root partition, don't know for sure where /boot is mounted, and don't know for sure that my root partition is /dev/hda1.

How do I verify those things?

Sorry to be such a dummy! :)

Thanks!
Optiker

on my computer, the drive with lost and found and your user name is my /home folder. I'd bet it's yours too.

As for how to boot into linux, in the installer it should ask you somewhere if you want to install/configure grub. That is the bootloader that lets you choose which drive to boot into. My guess is you either set it up wrong, or didn't set it up at all. From linux, it's relatively easy to add different boot entries to grub... If you can't get into linux though, I don't know how you'd do it.

Edit: I guess if you can get into the grub config file, it's probably already installed. If windows comes straight up though, the windows boot thing is probably running instead of grub.

Optiker: You should know the partition scheme you created... use "fdisk -l" from a terminal to get a map of the disk partitions: this should remind you. You can tell them apart by mounting them and examining their contents.

You may find that the linux partitions have been mounted for you.

I think it might be easier just to install Kubuntu again. Make sure that you install GRUB to the MBR this time, and everything should work properly.

For future reference, write down and keep in a safe place the partition numbers on your computer:
eg: hda1 - Windows C:
hda2 - /
hda3 - swap
or whatever.

--Ian

Simon...I can do that, but I don't know how to mount drives - this IS the Newbie forum, isn't it? :)

Thanks!
Optiker

Ian...I never saw anything in the installation regarding installing GRUB, and everytime I've installed in the past, it's been transparent. I was headed towards reinstalling, but not sure what to do different from the last time.

Thanks!
Optiker

The grub install is never transparent. They always have to ask if you want it installed, and if so where. There are tons of variables to take into account, like the number of drives, where this version of linux is on those drives, if grub should take over the MBR or not, etc. There is no way linux would install and just do grub "by default". It's like expecting your car to drive you somewhere by itself.

You really don't need to reinstall, unless you want to. All you need to do is get grub installed to the disk. There is advice in this thread already on how to do that, or you can search here at LQ, or use google. It is very well documented.

Peace,
JimBass

man mount

For eg. To mount the filesystem on partition /dev/hda4, in a root terminal, enter:

# mkdir /mnt/hda4
# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda4 /mnt/hda4

You can enter the directory with "cd /mnt/hda4"
You can see the content with "ls"
(Of course, you can use nautlus to browse to the directory...)

Those who suggest that a reinstall is simpler are correct.
It would take less than half an hour for me to fix your system if I was sitting in front of it... but I'm not so...

There is a section where edgy asks you where you'd like to install GRUB. But you have to be quite sharp eyed to catch it. Skipping over it will install grub to MBR by default.

Like most folk will follow the signs (driving) to the airport by default - but some folk will research the route and choose an alternative.

As a self-confessed rank-beginner, you will benifit from the Edgy Eft Installation with Screenshots.

It looks like the grub install choice occurs right at the end in the frame headed Ready to Install... see how the grub location is in a wee button? Click the button and it will give you choices.

Thanks Jim...I guess I was mis-remembering regarding installation of GRUB. This is the first time I've dual-booted with Linux on a separate drive from Windows, so maybe in the past, I just didn't know enough to know what I was actually doing.

In any case, I will be trying to reinstall grub on the correct disk.

Thanks again!
Optiker

I tried once installing Edgy a mont or two ago on my older computer, and had a lot of problems. I've also seen a fair number of complaints about it, so while I'd like to have some of its new features, I'm inexperienced enough to not want to deal with the problems, and at this point, Dapper works fine for me. So, it is Dapper that I've installed, and further have used the live CD install, not the terminal install. Because of my inexperience, every time I've tried to use the terminal install, I've gotten to the point of launching the re-partitioning/reformatting, and have just had enough uncertainty to cancel the installation and go back to the GUI, which I'm more comfortable with.

I will try to reinstall GRUB as suggested and see how it goes.

Thanks!
Optiker