I'm trying to figure out how I can have media folders that all users on one machine can have access to and add material to.

And I'm wondering if the folder(s) can be someplace other than a user's home folder so that they can back up their home folder without having to backup all that big stuff.

-CG

You can create a directory off the root partition and then change its permissions to allow everyone to read/write (Do this as root):

Is there a way I could ensure that the folder gets on the same partition as the home folder? It looks as though mandriva has the home folder on both partitions it created, though only the home folder appears on the larger partition.

What do you mean by this? A folder can only be on one partition at a time. Mandriva probably created a root ('/') partition and a /home partition. The home partition however, shows up inside the '/' partition because that is where it is mounted. If you want the folder to be on the same partition as /home, then create it under /home:

You might also want to create links for the users so that the directory "appears" to be in their home directory. Something like

ln -s /home/public /home/username_here/public

A common area doesn't have to be in any particular place. "/home" is where you go for "your" stuff, but it's not a limitation on you. In my case (and I've noticed in others) I use "/data" for all my "stuff" (music, movies, kernels, other source code). It's on a separate disk from the root drive, and it makes it much safer for me to do upgrades and trial kernels, because if (when) I bork things really good, it's just a matter of fixing the boot drive; not fixing my data.

Consider setting up a "/data" (or your favorite name) partition or drive, and put your media there. You can give all users "rw" access, or give them their own directory, or even define a new group, set ownership to that group, and add membership in this group to your users.