On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 13:09:47 -0500 Temlakos <temlakos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 12/16/2017 12:59 PM, stan wrote: > > On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 10:13:55 -0500 > > fred roller <fredroller66@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> | 5. In general, should I place a partition for anything other > >> than /home on the 1 TB SSD? > >> This will explain how/why I put /home on the 120 [smaller drive]. > >> Through the use of hard/soft links to folders in /Crypt I connected > >> the data files I wanted to preserve on /Crypt. This use of links > >> kept data writing to /Crypt and in so doing kept it separate from > >> the OS drive. So /home/user1/Documents > >> -->/Crypt/user1/Documents, /home/user1/Pictures > >> --> /Crypt/user1/Pictures, etc. etc. This link was invisible to > >> the user. The data files from software likewise can be > >> linked, /home/user1/.thunderbird --> /Crypt/user1/.thunderbird; > >> which was great for recovering the mail client and other > >> softeware. This set-up was born of having put /home on /Crypt at > >> first but if you migrated to a new distro or recovered from > >> failure you tended to inherit artifacts which the new system > >> choked on. This process proved to be a cleaner foundation from > >> which to recover/reinstall. One had only reinstall a clean OS on > >> the 120 then re-link, the data was never touched during the > >> installation process. Proved so effective that I preferred do > >> clean installs from OS iteration to the next as opposed to > >> upgrading. There are some pros/cons to soft/hard links so > >> research for the trade-offs. > Stan: > > How exactly do you manage mounting the larger drive under a different > name (whether /crypt or some other name) and setting up/maintaining > the link structure? Seems to me you have to rebuild it every time you > (a) reinstall the OS or (b) add or remove users. It also seems to me > that mounting the larger drive as /home accomplishes the same goal. > Why doesn't it? > > Temlakos I think you meant this question for Fred, but I'll respond to at least some of it. [mounting the larger drive] That's just creating a mount point under /mnt and an entry in /etc/fstab. When the system starts, the partition is mounted. Sure, the link structure has to be created when you add a user. But that's all of 5 minutes work, at least for me. Create the mount point. Edit /etc/fstab to copy the setup line into the new system. ln -s [mount point] [home mount name] for each directory in the mount you want to mount in home As you can see, I use symbolic links. This reminds me that there is a caveat for doing things this way. Any cp or rsync has to be restricted to a single file system, or it will follow the links. Fred answered your last question in the blurb above. But the TLDR is *cruft* and incompatibility. Data is always compatible with any program that can read it. But configurations for the tools that do read it might be different in different versions of the OS. So using an old home for a new version can lead to subtle problems. And safety. The data is never in danger during any install or upgrade as the partitions where it resides are never touched. The disk can even be unplugged during system maintenance with no issues. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
