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Propose your solution
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nme
wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 01:33
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This is a great idea. It might even be good to have it as a option to set it up this way during installation.
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arzajac
wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:46
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If a user wants to use a separate home partition, it should be made easy, but this should not be the default. The installation should not be made more complicated because of this. It's just not worth it.
Perhaps making it easier to back-up and restore a home directory would solve the real need here.
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bluecat9
wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 03:03
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This is one of my biggest requests as well!
It would be neat if Ubuntu detected existing Ubuntu users just like it does Windows users and gave you the option to import those users as well. (only, no need to configure additional information for ubuntu users such as passwords, etc)
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I agree. I've been using separate /home partitions for quite awhile and it makes for easier upgrades.
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pimlottc
wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 08:24
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Is there a standard programmatic method to identify a partition as a /home partition? It's not like there is a special partition id for it.
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Obvious problem:
Joe user has... Fedora installed. Her's heard about Ubuntu and decides to give it a go. He installs it and yes, he definitely does want to be able to access all his Fedora documents.
But wait! Now he he has two OS's using the same /home. That's a bad idea. Now he's sharing all the preferences (dot files) between both OS's, which have different versions of applications.
Applications are expected to be able to "upgrade" dot-files automatically; they may even be expected to be able to cope with unexpected new configuration items, but configuration files just aren't designed to be used by two different versions of software at the same time.
Also you'd have to import old user ID's, or everything ends up being owned by the wrong user.
There might be ways to make this easier, but I don't think this one is a good candidate for the installer.
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I think the installer should recognise a /home partition and ask the user if s/he wants to keep it .
perhaps we can have this option only in the alternate version as I assume (am I wrong?) that most experienced users who will use a separate /home partition will use the alternate rather than the GUI.
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I have a /home partition, and I install with the GUI rather than the alternate. Why grab the laternate if you only have one or two device and modern enough hardware?
OTOH, recogninzing a /home partition, and allow to use it and select one of the users as yourself at install time would be a really nice candy.
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mrand
wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 14:34
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jpriviere wrote:
> Why grab the laternate if you only have one or two device and modern enough hardware?
Because for some brain dead reason, that's the preferred install route for RAID, LVM, and numerous other things.
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I would like to see this!
I upgraded my stable-as-a-rock Feisty box to Gutsy. Gutsy had random, unexplainable hangs every few minutes/hours. Can't undo the upgrade. Can't install Feisty without wiping out my home directory. Can't back up all of home because it's freakin huge.
I ended up using gparted to create a new partition to install Feisty on (dicey at best!). The whole time wondering why I couldn't just use my existing /home.
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aysiu
(Brainstorm moderator)
wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 20:37
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I agree that sharing a /home between two Linux distros is a bad idea, but...
1. There's no reason the installer couldn't just warn you "If this /home partition was from a previous Ubuntu installation, it will be safe to proceed. If the /home is from a Linux distribution that's not from the Ubuntu family, you may experience incompatibility."
2. Anyone who dual-boots two Linux OSes probably knows enough to get around sharing a separate /home between the two and won't go for an automated option.
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Ah! I LOVE THIS IDEA! The one thing that scares me about Hardy is installing it... I can do the install fine but when it comes to preserving my existing /home I get scared that I might overwrite it instead of just assigning the mount point of /home to my existing /home.
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dino99
wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 09:30
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I can't understand why we still have a so poor installer:
suppose, when you need to make an install on a system with several hdd (hd & sd), partitions (in use or not, labelled or not) and several free spaces on the different disks, and for more confuse, mapping in grub
At this moment, users are totally blind: we need a visual installer with identification of used partitions, and no confused questions when asking on which disk/partition you want making install of Ubuntu. Same problem then for Grub: mbr or boot sector (and which one: for multiple os you don't want multiple grub!!!)
Well, ask for clear, clever and visual installer.
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aysiu: If the only safe course of action is to upgrade or re-install an existing Ubuntu, then shouldn't this be provided as a special installer mode? It should be possible to reliably detect an existing Ubuntu and prompt to overwrite everything except /home.
As I say, unless you know where to grab the old /etc/passwd, you may well mess up file ownership anyway.
That would fulfil the Use Case in the blueprint. (Re-installing ubuntu). Even better, if /home is not on a separate partition, it could avoid reformatting and just delete everything except /home.
Once you go beyond this use case, you start running into problems.
On a side not, you don't explain how you would dissuade people from
1) Installing a new version of Ubuntu, creating a new / (presumably shrinking the old one) and sharing /home
2) Using it for a while
3) Deciding that they don't like it enough to upgrade
4) Trying to switch back to their old version of Ubuntu, only to find that their settings have been mangled... the settings they hoped to preserve by not overwriting / (the old Ubuntu) and /home (their documents and settings).
Only allowing /home re-use for a special upgrade mode ought to avoid unpleasantness like this.
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Oops - sorry, I read the thread and it looks like that *is* pretty much what's being suggested.
To be clear: I think the installer should detect an existing Ubuntu install, and suggest to re-use all the partitions, reformatting everything except /home and /media/X (foreign partitions).
It should probably say something about this being a safe way to migrate documents and settings - at least hinting that there could be unexpected problems if you try to do something different.
Ew... I thought there was a file you could check to see if a partition was a Ubuntu root. But it claims to be debian :-(.
$ cat /etc/debian_version
lenny/sid
I guess the filesystem layout and packages are close enough that there wouldn't be a problem upgrading from Debian though.
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This is a great idea. A lot of linux installers use a seperate /home partition as the default. I think Ubuntu should do this as well. With 6 month update cycles it's a must.
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This worked for me whith 7.10. It imported every users from the older OS and I can use them in both systems. Well, both systems are Ubuntu 7.10 and I don't know if it would work with other releases or distros.
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keeping the old home directory also brings some issues: the old configuration files saved in dot_something folders.
I like this idea (voted up), but the installation script has to deal with old config files... not trivial.
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aysiu
(Brainstorm moderator)
wrote on the 7 Mar 08 at 06:24
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The old configuration files shouldn't be an issue--they're actually one of the main reasons for having a separate /home partition.
It only becomes "not trivial" or complicated if you're using a /home partition from another distro. If it's Ubuntu to Ubuntu, there's no complication with the dot_something folders.
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tgstte2
wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 02:29
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This is a bad idea. You are saying this to be good for beginner "..but especially beginner users may not know how to preserve their /home partition during a reinstallation....", but how did they end up with a separate /home in the first place? I doubt they even have a clue. The alternate install I think is adequate for now.
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Post your comment
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Blueprint home-partition-integration-with-installer:
Ubuntuforums.org thread #411871
