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Old 05-25-2010, 09:51 AM   #1
Xyberbat
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Question about NTFS disk in Slackware 13.


After a motherboard change in my pc, I would like to dualboot Slackware 13 with WinXP.
In the old system, (dualboot Win2K-XP), I had "My Documents " on a separate disk, as it was used by both OS's.
In the new system, I would again like to share this between the 2 operating systems. (both clean install)
--> Is it possible to use the existing NTFS disk as the /home in Slackware?
For the Linux side, I am planning 4 partitions on 3 separate HD's:
hda containing root & /local in ext4
hdb containing /home (= the question; in NTFS)
hdc containing /swap
Thanks in advance for helping.
 
Old 05-25-2010, 09:57 AM   #2
Richard Cranium
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Distribution: Slackware64 15.0
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I wouldn't use NTFS for my home directory; I don't know how well Windows will handle the user/group information that is needed on the Linux side as well as the execute bits and all that. Are you going to run cygwin or something when you boot into Windows?
 
Old 05-25-2010, 10:31 AM   #3
Josh000
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Registered: Aug 2009
Distribution: Slackware 13 64bit
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xyberbat View Post
After a motherboard change in my pc, I would like to dualboot Slackware 13 with WinXP.
In the old system, (dualboot Win2K-XP), I had "My Documents " on a separate disk, as it was used by both OS's.
In the new system, I would again like to share this between the 2 operating systems. (both clean install)
--> Is it possible to use the existing NTFS disk as the /home in Slackware?
For the Linux side, I am planning 4 partitions on 3 separate HD's:
hda containing root & /local in ext4
hdb containing /home (= the question; in NTFS)
hdc containing /swap
Thanks in advance for helping.
You can do what you ask

I would suggest having a folder on the NTFS partition called linuxhome or such, and then mounting that as your /home so it is nice and seperate from your windows files.

To have write support for NTFS in linux, you have to use a userspace driver, either NTFS3G or ntfsmount.

This won't matter too much, but you will have to make sure the driver is initilized and the partition mounted before any programs will need to access /home (in case you have any settings or such).

Otherwise, it should theoretically be fine.

Although I am not to sure how well unix permissions will be able to be stored, but if you are just keeping data then this shouldn't be much of an issue.

Another, perhaps better solution if possible is to grab an ext2 driver for windows. ext2 has not had to be reverse engineered in the way NTFS has, so there should be more of a gurantee of stability, although given that windows and ext versions are later than the ext2 drivers were designed for, I'm not to sure of that either.

Last edited by Josh000; 05-25-2010 at 10:33 AM.
 
Old 05-25-2010, 10:57 AM   #4
Gerard Lally
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Registered: Sep 2009
Location: Leinster, IE
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xyberbat View Post
After a motherboard change in my pc, I would like to dualboot Slackware 13 with WinXP.
In the old system, (dualboot Win2K-XP), I had "My Documents " on a separate disk, as it was used by both OS's.
In the new system, I would again like to share this between the 2 operating systems. (both clean install)
--> Is it possible to use the existing NTFS disk as the /home in Slackware?
I would be reluctant to go down that route. Why not mount it as a share, with ntfs-3g write support if you want it? (Remember this option has to be compiled into kernel.) You could mount it at /mnt/ntfs or /mnt/share - make the necessary changes in /etc/fstab to mount it with ntfs-3g write support.

As far as I know IDE drives are now numbered differently in Slackware 13.1 - /dev/sd* instead of /dev/hd*, so be very careful when you are partitioning for Slackware. If you are unsure it might be an idea to disconnect the data drive completely till the OSes are set up.
 
Old 05-27-2010, 10:46 AM   #5
Xyberbat
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Registered: Feb 2010
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Thank You all for your input.

Mobo will be delivered next week, so rebuilding PC will start first weekend in June.
Based on your input, I shall split my Win homedrive in 2 partitions. The new one being /home in Slackware (ext4), first still being for XP (NTFS).
Then using Ext2read ver 2.2 in XP and ntfs-3g in Slackware, I can access the other part from whichever O/S I am using at the time.
This way I can keep the 2 O/S's relatively "pure".

Still much to learn when this project gets going.

Again: Thank you for your support.
 
  


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