I've been having some problems w/ the software on Fedora Core 5, including YumEx. It's more annoying than it is inhibiting, though i have been interested to try some mpeg stuff, which seems an impossible balance with sanity.

whatever-- the point is that i'm thinking i'd like to try Mandriva (or maybe FC6)... i actually already have the DVD "Mandriva Free", so it should be the work of an afternoon to get that up and running.

but what of all of the stuff i've got in my /home/user/ directory? my primary concern amounts to files: html, php, mysql db's, text and "office" docs, inkscape & xara stuff-- you know the stuff-- the "me" stuff which i musn't destroy if i can help it.

i'm thinking i could simply copy the contents of that folder to another drive, or DVD's, but here's the problem i see w/ that. though i have the HDD's to do it-- any time i've tried "looking at" a Linux file system from another Linux OS (e.g. boot to Fedora, attempt to "browse" the contents of a "slaved" Fedora drive... let's say they were nearly identical drives, one master, one slave...), i can never "see" the "Filesystem" part of the slaved drive, but only the "Grub" / "Boot" partition.

i'm looking for advice for the general practice of "Stuff" transfer. suggestions?
i've made no decisions yet, other than burning that mandriva cd-- so, whatever is cool-- i'm open for whatever you might propose-- preferrably, as far on the "easy as it gets / failsafe / compatible" side of things as possible, realizing that nothing is ever easy, failsafe, or compatible of course.

If your /home directory is on a separate partition (which is highly recommended) then if you ever want to experiment with another distro, you can simply install it "around" your existing /home partition. In other words, when you are installing the new distro, just be sure to *not* format the /home partition. Once the new distro is installed, everything that was in /home will still be there just as it was before

/etc is also another important directory. It has system wide settings for some of those services you mentioned, like apache, php, etc...

Fedora Core 5 uses a graphical installer, much like WinXP. among the first few questions of that "interview" are what to do about partitioning. as an inexperienced user, and also one who has installed FC5 multiple times ( +/- 5 or 6 ), i can say that i 1.) haven't ever responded to the options provided quite far from the "default", and 2.) the multiple installations have always been the same, and everything always matches up w/ instructional documentation. my point being: if you know a "typical" Fedora Core 5 installation-- then you can bet i've got one. how that relates to the answer to your question here, i'm not sure. i suppose this is part of what i don't understand about not being able to "see" the Ext2 partitions, or whatever's going on there...

what would i want to look for to be sure of this? for example let's say i was going to install another FC5 on that drive (assuming that example will work here, and that you're somewhat familiar w/ the graphical installer i've used-- and that we both remember what it looks like...), what then would i want to look for when i get to the "partition screen"?

i know there's 3 "partitions" -- but not all physical. off the top of my head, i'm thinking there's 2 physical, 1 boot, 1 filesystem-- and the filesys is where there's 2 logical partitions. is this correct? it's not that simple, i'm sure-- but maybe we can go from there? at least you might have a better idea of where i'm comin' from.

thanks!

EDIT:wait! are you saying that the /home directory can actually "stay there intact" while the rest of the Filesystem is removed and replaced? it sounds kinda crazy, but i wouldn't be totally shocked if it's possible w/ Linux. hmm... now i'm really curious what you mean precisely.

Typically, when you install Linux, it's to your advantage to allocate different directories to different partitions. This is helpful for both security and performance reasons. As you know, in Linux the minimum is 2 partitions, / (root) and swap. Using the minimum will work, but it's better to subdivide things a bit further. Personally, the scheme I use is to have separate partitions for:
/boot only needs to be about 100Mg, /usr might be 8G or so, / might be 5G or so, and /home would be everything else. Obviously the capacity of your hard drive will play a role in how large each partition is, but assuming you're using at least a 20G drive, the suggestions I listed should be OK.

Since you are using Fedora Core, you probably want to choose the "custom" or "expert" option when it comes to partitioning. Assuming that you are starting with a clean slate, you could set up the partitions as I suggested, and do the installation. If you later decided you wanted to try another distro, no problem, just go through the installation process with that new distro, but in the partitioning phase, make sure that you do *not* reformat the partition that contains /home. That's what I meant about installing another distro "around" /home -- you leave /home as is, but install the new distro into all the other partitions around it

sorry for the delayed reply to this topic, however i believe further correspondence here will be more relevant now that i've installed Mandrake on another system, and i've realized from the Mandriva GUI Installer (drak?), that there are more options; more possible configurations for the filesystem / partitions.

I hope you're able to continue this discussion. please allow me to "show you" what i've got going on here:Best i can think to do (as i'm horrible w/ forum brevity), is to say: the following, "accurate or not", i'll dictate as merely in my perception of how it is based on a FC5 default; linux user experience is about 10 months.

## Intro ##
My Summary Understanding:
0.) Currently, my FC5 has two partitions. A. [ / ], and B. [ /boot ].
1.) Partitions A.: [ / ] (ie. the filesystem, aka the "root" partition), has everything i use "mounted to it" including my all-important /home which is therefore a "sub"-something of the A. partition. it's not really a "sub-folder" (Linux vs. MS), but a sub-mount-point of the main [ / ] partition. therefore [ ./home ] is "inside of", or mounted to [ / ]

2.) Partition, "B.": unrelated to the functioning of Fedora itself in terms of libraries, programs, my documents, etc. is the "boot" partition from where Grub is loaded at boottime. it serves a singular purpose: manage the "boot process" of the system.

## Details ##
i think of the [ ls -l ] output as a listing of "sub-folders".
For example, ./home ./etc ./var ./usr -- these are all "sub-folders" of that [ / ] "A." Root Filesystem mount-point. I think maybe they are not sub-folders, but sub-locations "mounted to" their parent, [ / ]

the [ / ] root is NOT to be confused with the Root-user (aka "God" user), which curiously has his own mount-point ALSO under the / filesystem, a mount-point itself identified as "/root".

curious that i "see" [ ./boot ] appear as a "sub" of [ / ]. if it is on "another partition" (considering the way i think of "partitions" from the Win days and PQ Partition Magic, etc.)

## Hypothesis: ##
** i can't "install around my /home", because i DIDn'T partition originally to do it as JW suggests.
** i have [ /home ] INSIDE of [ / ] so as it stands, i am "stuck" with a /home which is mounted inside of one of two primary mount-points, [ / ]

## Conclusion: ##
i have to do a manual "archival" of the contents of /home if i wish to retain that data.

I have no doubt that i am WAY off in many aspects of this explanation, but it was the best i could think of to try to convey why i am having trouble understanding.

Please post the output of fdisk, which will display some basic info about your partitions
note that's a lowercase "L".

In an attempt to clear things up, here's an extremely basic summary of the Linux directory structure:

/ = the very top level. This is known as "root", and all directories are below it. When referring to "root", it's important to distinguish between the root directory and the root user. The former refers to the top level of a set of directories, while the latter refers to the top level user, who has full permissions to do anything on the system.

/home/<username> = the default directory for each regular user account. If /home exists in the same partition as / (root) then as you mention you wouldn't be able to install a new distro "around" /home. FYI -- the directory "/root" is the root user's home directory, aka it's the equivalent of /home/<username> for a regular user.

If you are interested in backup up /home, you can run a simple dd or cp command and save your personal files to a CD or DVD or flash drive or whatever. HTH

hi there, JW. thanks for your continued correspondence. i understand all the filesystem stuff now (i think!

here's my fdisk -l:
showing my "slaved" windows drive there (the 40 gig)
yes-- it is perfectly clear now. i used to setup Win98 like that (i edited it out of the prev. post where i talked about PQ Bootmagic, etc). so it all makes sense.

HOWEVER, it took me this long to realize it myself, but i think i was really trying to focus on the issue of "how to see" an "external" linux partition. (See 4th para., orig post) for example:
1.) i take this FC5, 2-partition drive, remove it from the case and put it aside-- my ./home dir and all the files are still there, dormant and inactive on the shelf.
2.) unwrap a brand-new hard drive, install FC5.
3.) according to the "install around ./home" theory, but in a reverse fashion, COULD I mount the old ./home somewhere in the new HDD, or literally copy the files into the new ./home?

it may sound simple, but i've actually tried this sort of thing before w/out success (i believe trying to modify fstab or mtab... i forget which is which off the top..), and i've not been able to "see" the old drive.
since that experience, i resolved to think that (in linux) the only way to use old files like that is indeed through use of DVD or other bulk media for archiving, then transferring the desired old ./home files back in through the DVD device.
so-- that's really where i was trying to go w/ this-- the "how" is it done?

i find it hard to believe that is truly the case, yet i've researched mtab / fstab on how to look at other drives, and i've had no luck.

sorry for the curve-ball, but that is truly where i had hoped to go w/ this
(it occurred to me because i was going to inquire "how" to get FC5 to go about using a multi-partition setup such as the one you described w/ a separate part for ./usr ./home ./)

I think you may be making this more complicated than it really is. If you are going to taking out your current hard drive (let's call this "A") and replacing with a new drive ("B"), then your basic plan would be:

1. Decide how you want to partition "B" first. I would recommend allocating one partition for /, one for /home, one for /usr, and a small swap space.

2. Create those partitions on "B"

3. Install the distro of your choice on "B"

4. Add "A" back into the tower, then mount it manually.

5. Once "A" is mounted to a given mountpoint (eg, /mnt/hd) you can navigate down to your old /home directory.

6. Copy the contents from your old /home directory to your new /home directory.

Alternatively, if you burn your files to DVD, you can just mount the DVD and do a similar copy to your new /home directory.

Good luck with it