New Hard Disk

DeceasedSoul · 10-22-2009, 08:38 AM

Got a new hard disk. I want to install both Slackware and Ubuntu in that disk. I think it is not difficult task but thought of discussing before.
I want to share /home partition, is it possible?

And what about SWAP? Is it possible to share or I have to make it separate for those two Distros?

Wim Sturkenboom · 10-22-2009, 08:45 AM

You can share the swap. Although it's possible to share the home directory (provided that both systems support the same filesystem), I personally advise against it. The two main reasons:

if user IDs and group IDs on the two systems don't match, you have problems accessing files and directories
different version of software might have slightly different config file formats and the might therefore be incompatible

camorri · 10-22-2009, 08:47 AM

You can share both swap and home. There can be problems with sharing home, if the desktops are not at the same level. ie two different versions of KDE, say 3.5 and 4 would not mix well together.

thegeek · 10-22-2009, 08:52 AM

Why dont you just mount the shared partition as /data and avoid having /home shared ?
Would work out less complex , and still allows shared access for files etc.

DeceasedSoul · 10-22-2009, 08:56 AM

Ok then, what about SWAP, is it OK to share SWAP?

brianL · 10-22-2009, 09:05 AM

Yes, it is.

cola · 10-22-2009, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeceasedSoul

Ok then, what about SWAP, is it OK to share SWAP?

Yes, swap can be shared.
Sharing /home is not recomended.
If the swap partition is not activated by default then add a line in /etc/fstab like

Code:

/dev/sdaX swap swap defaults 0 0

Here X is the placeholder for the partition number of swap.
After that,

Code:

su
password
swapon -a