OK so here is a quick overview of what I am wanting to do. I have a small mini-itx based system that I have built for the intent of using for various and testing and recovery uses. I am now to the point where I am auditioning OSes for it. I am down to either Backtrack, Blackbuntu or NodeZero. I have had a fair amount of experience with Backtrack but have heard good things about the other two as well as being a regular Ubuntu user. I have thought about just multi-booting all of them discreetly as I do Win 7 and Ubuntu 11.04 now on my main system but think it would be easier for comparison of things like file recovery to have one central place for things like DD images and such to share between all of them. Also, as it is just a dualcore Atom processor with a maxed out 2Gb ram using VMs are not really a great option.

Is it really just as simple as setting up the system in the following manor:
.../sda1/(boot and root for Backtrack)
.../sda2/(boot and root for Blackbuntu)
.../sda3/(boot and root for NodeZero)
.../sda4/home(for all the above)
.../sda5/swap(also for all)

Obviously I doubt that I would be using the encrypted home folder or whole disk encryption or the like until I make a final decision on an OS.

Thanks for any input on this!

I would not think it is a good idea to share a single home directory among different distros, because the configuration files that get placed in ~/ by the different distros might conflict.

It would be safer to create a single subdirectory in one install for they files you want to access from all the distros. You can then mount it from the other distros when you need to access it.

1 members found this post helpful.

I share my $HOME amongst distributions and have for years. Never had a problem. Currently I have Gentoo, Slackware, Scientific, and CLFS sharing the same $HOME. The only thing a distro might place in your $HOME are the skel files when you create your user. Just don't create the $HOME directory or copy the skel files when you create your everyday user on each distro. Also, you need to make sure the everyday user has the same UID/GID in each distro or you might find it tough to log in.

1 members found this post helpful.

@frankbell I hadn't thought about the overlap with configs as each distro has several of the same programs that they use but with different versions and such.

@weibullguy I don't know that there would be much to worry about with the other users as this is only going to be used for a brief side by side comparison. Also, as far as I know, most of the distros I will be testing run as root (well at least Backtrack does). But it is a big oversight on my behalf with the UID/GID in general. (BTW, having two LFS systems running on old P3s I now have to check out the CLFS you mentioned... So much for free time! LOL)

Thank you both for the input I will post the outcome of the test run when I get a chance to try it!

@weibullguy good call on the UID/GID! Though all three are Ubuntu derivatives, both Blackbuntu and NodeZero use a non-root user as the main account.

@frankbell I had no problems to speak of with config file collisions. The fact that they use the same core group of tools... well... said tools tend to use the same default names regardless of OS... However, as this is all just for testing purposes no harm was done to much more than my ego... *facepalm*

I am still going to do a bit more testing but other than liking the overall looks of NodeZero I may still stick with Backtrack as I have no need to use sudo on a regular basis. (OK there is also the whole "devil you know" thing...)