in that case, look at /etc/fstab

man fstab

For detail

I'm not sure why you want to create another ntfs partition on which to put files created in Mint. You already have a large ntfs partition for Documents, Photos, etc. so creating the partition to be used from Mint and formatting it with a Linux filesystem (ext4) would make more sense.

When you create a user, there is a directory created under the /home directory for that user. The only one who has read/write access to those files is the user and of course root/admin. Seems to me a lot of your problems could be resolved with a smaller / (root) partition, 15-20GB and creating a much larger /home partition. Currently, your / partition is much larger than /home.

If you created a separate partition for your Mint files, you could add a group with your son/daughter and give them both read/write permissions. The problem with that is either could overwrite/delete the others files whether deliberately or accidentally. I would think a larger /home partition would be the simplest solution. Doing this will eliminate the need for an admin password when accessing files.

I'm not sure what your intentions are here. You can obviously have unallocated space out of which you can then create and format partitions for your use.

odiseo77,

Thanks for your reply.

You mean- during installation, first I should create a ntfs primary partition, then give it a mount point '/mnt/XXXX [can I give OD&CR - it is the shortform of the usernames of my children ]'.

And next, I should edit the fstab.

How would I edit the fstab? Where is it precisely located? [The last time I did it, I messed up things terribly]

Since I would be assigning the standard-users a seperate partition and would be giving access to only that partition, as mentioned by you, and the other partitions are not mounted for them, [they would require the admin psswrd for that] I suppose I need not worry?

Thanks again & Regards

Anil

Ah, this is where I got hit the last time. I want to be carefull this time. Would you please kindly provide the details on this? I have some questions here.

• The editing of the fstab has to be done after the installation, and nothing is to be done regarding this during installation, right?

• And I suppose I can get the precise details of UUID, by opening the programs Gparted or Disks.

Thanks for the concern odiseo77,

Regards

Anil

That's right; fstab must be edited once you boot into the installed system. The mount point also needs to be created after installation. You can edit fstab with any text editor but you'll need to execute it as root. I'm not familiar with Miint, but you can use gedit or any similar GUI editor or you can use something like nano from the command line.

You can get the UUID's and device names of all partitions simply executing blkid from the command line.

The users don't need to the root password to access the partition you want them to share; you simply need to set fstab properly.

BTW, if you don't need this data to be accesible from Windows, you could simply follow yancek's suggestion of using a larger separate /home partition for them. Each user will have his/her own directory inside /home which will be accessible only to his/her owner (that's one of the reasons why Linux' multiuser feature is there). Some distros give certain type of access to each user's home directory to the other users, but this can be simply changed with chmod, if needed.

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Thank you yancek, for your concern;

I want to create a seperate ntfs partition because I do not want other members of the family to access it, and clutter it.

And I want a ntfs partition so that it can be accessed with windows too.

But I want to protect the files by keeping them in a seperate primary partition, so that suppose when there is some problem with the LM OS [which is bound to happen owing to my ignorance of the OS] I could re-install it without the fear of loosing my/others' files.

But there is the higher risk of losing the files if something bad happens to the OS, than if they are on a seperate ntfs primary partition, I suppose.

Thank you

Regards

Anil

The live USB installer asks for the setting of the mount points during installation.

Where do I find the fstab precisely? How do I open it?

Yes, I have to be very careful there.

Yes, I need this data to be accesible from Windows. Moreover by making a seperate ntfs primary partition, I seek to make the data more secure. I suppose data on a seperate primary partition is more secure than the one on the /home partition, if in case, I have to do a re-install.

Thanks& Regards

Anil

You can create a separate /home partition during the installation. You can then reinstall the operating system which will be on a separate partition without losing anything on the current/old /home partition. You do need to pay attention during the installation as that is not the default.

If you are reinstalling Mint and want to do that to the same partition on which you previously installed the filesystem, you click on the partition number in the main window to highlight it then click the Change tab below that window. This will open a new window - 'Edit a partition' where you can select the Mount point. Click the down arrow to the right of the box at Mount point to see or create options. For the operating system install, it should be: / which is the symbol for the root filesystem. Follow this same procedure to create a separate /home partition or other data partitions.

You deal with fstab after you have completed the installation and boot into Mint with root permissions: sudo gedit /etc/fstab
You might have to change gedit as I don't know what text editor is used in cinnamon.

No, see my comments above. It isn't necessary to use only primary partitions. Windows needs its boot files on a primary and you already have that so you can put your ntfs data on a logical partition, or primary it doesn't really matter.

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I wouldn't bother with any swap space.

In limux you can choose what you share simply by adding user to a group or hange permissions on a certain folder. User1 can opt to share his/her docs with anyone or no one. You don't have to create a seperate partition for that purpose.

Yes you can have unallocated space for this purpose, the only problem is if you put at end of drive & require the use of it at 1 of the lartitions at the beginning of the drive, you'll have to move partitions to the right & then add the space to the partition in need of it.

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Thank you yancek,

I have some doubts here;

Suppose in my previous installation, I had created three basic partitions i.e. '/home' for the documents, '/' for the file system and the 'swap' for the RAM. The system is used for some time and documents and data from all the users get stored in the '/home' partition.

Now suppose something unfortunate happened, and I had to make a re-install. I have some doubts/querries as to whether I can go about it as follows;

Doubt 1:
During the new re-installation, can I keep/reuse the old '/home' partition? [which was created in the previous/old installation and holds all the stored documents and data]; and would it remain intact and not get wiped out after this new re-installation? I.E. since I already have a '/home' partition from the previous installation, [is it that] I do not have to make another new '/home' partition for this new re-installation. Is it so that, I can keep that same old/previous '/home' partition, and even after the new re-installation all the documents stored in the previous/old '/home' partition, would remain intact?

But you mentioned about; 'to pay attention not to make the previous/old '/home' partition default'.

Doubt 2:
If that is not the case [i.e. if the previous/old '/home' partition would get wiped out, like it happens to the 'MyDocuments' folder in a Windows re-installation], and so I would have to make a new '/home' partition to keep intact the files on the previous/old '/home' partition, then I will have space constraints. What if I do not have the space to create another new '/home' partition?

I suppose, in that case, the work arround would be, to create a seperate partition for storing the documents and data etc, and create a small minimum '/home' partition for daily use like for OpenOffice works, Downloads etc and periodically they should be shifted to the 'Store-Partition', if we can call that. I thought like that. So I felt the need for a seperate 'Store-Partition'.

However this is where I am encountering problems. The 'Store-Partition' is not accessible to all the users. Every time other standard-users want to access that 'Store-Partition', they would require the admin password. This is where I am stuck. I am not able to give free access to specific standard-users to the specific partitions, [here the 'Store-Partition' specified for the standard-users]. I have one large 150 GB ntfs partition, and I want keep it specifically for myself, the admin, as my 'Store-Partition'.

Thank you for your concern, yancek and sorry for the long post.

Regards

Anil

Thank you for coming EDDY,

I tried that, but without success. I created a new group and named it 'OD&CR'. And added the standard-users to that group. And then in the properties dialogue box of the partition, I changed the permissions settings and added the group name and set it to read, write and execute. But that did not help. When I logged on as the standard user and clicked on the partition, the system demanded the admin password for mounting.

For that I had to change the fstab, I suppose. That is where I messed up.

[Sometimes I tend to enter commands in the terminal, just picking from suggestions found on the net, without knowing the exact purpose and meaning of that command and what it does and why it is necessary. I have understood that to operate through the Terminal, I would need the backing of a lot of information regarding the working of Linux systems. I would do that gradually. Like I learnt to tweak the Windows system. Now I have stopped operating through the terminal by picking from suggestions found on the net. If ever I have to use the Terminal, I shall come to the forum and take proper guidance. Now I will try to use the Synaptic Package Manager as much as possible for my needs.]

I have to mention here that, when I tried to change the share settings of the partition too, and it asked for the 'share name', there too I added the group name. Is that right?

Thanking you

Regards

Anil

Hello JeremyBoden,

Is it? Can we install LM without the Swap partition? Thats news for me.

That aside, I suppose, we would need Swap space, while occasionally we are doing some high resource demanding works, like video editing and the like. Or else we would have to spend for more RAM. I feel that, spending more, just for some occasional use, is not necessary while I could make it up with the help of Swap file. Moreover most of the time that extra huge RAM capacity would sit idle. I have a 3 GB RAM, which suffises most of my demands. And the Swap would be my aid, while I am doing some high resource demanding work. Am I correct?

Thanks for coming JeremyBoden

Regards

Anil

What I meant is that "not formatting" the partition is not the default. I personally do not use a separate /home partition. You "should" be able to install the new system to a / (root) partition and not affect your home. Just make sure you do NOT select to format the partition on which you currently have /home and do not make any changes to it. There is obviously no guarantee and I would definitely back up any important data before changing partitions, formatting or installing/reinstalling.

If you have or want a separate partition on which to keep personal documents, pictures, video, or anything important to you it is a lot simpler to create a separate data partition either during or after the install. This would obviously be necessary if you want the partition to be ntfs as you can't have /home on an ntfs filesystem.

You should be able to put an entry in the /etc/fstab file to give users access including write permissions after you have completed the install to your separate "Store" partitions. The only possible problem is that permissions for Linux and windows aren't the same and I rarely use windows so can't help with that part.

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You can install without creating a swap partition.
If you are constricted by memory (depending on what programs get run), you can create a swap partition later.
Alternatively, you can create a swap file which is almost as good as a swap partition.