Sharing file systems

[John Summerfield]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 15:02 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> 
>>On Sunday 19 March 2006 12:41, Jeff Vian wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 17:30 +0530, Sumeet Pal Singh wrote:
>>>
>>>>HI
>>>>I have ubuntu 5.10 on my system and using FC3 since it was released.
>>>>I tried to install FC4 on my system by sharing the swap and /home
>>>>partition between FC4 and ubuntu. The installation went well. I did
>>>>not install KDE in FC4.
>>>>I was well aware of permission screw ups that this could lead to,
>>>>hence I did not create any user (The UID and GID of root is
>>>>preserved across Linux distros)
>>>>
>>>>I booted in as root and created a new user with UID and GID same as
>>>>on ubuntu.
>>>>Now I booted in GNOME and it was completely configured!!!! Moreover
>>>>gaim started and signed me in to all my accounts!!! This was first
>>>>time login...
>>>>
>>>>My question is that can is sharing /home okay for a long run or will
>>>>it lead to problems.
>>>>Also can other file systems like /usr be shared along with this and
>>>>if it can be  then under what restrictions??
>>>>If any one has done this please let me know.
> 
> As long as the filesystems are compatible anything can be accessed.
> There is a _major_ caveat with sharing though.  
> 
> Directories containing the programs, libraries, and configs may break
> things quickly.  /lib, /bin, /sbin, and their counterparts in /usr would
> likely not be good things to share since the binaries may not be
> compatible.  Similarly, /etc could cause serious configuration problems.
> 
> I don't think I would try sharing any of the system directories between
> distributions.

I don't think anyone contemplated that. Sharing between different 
releases of the same distro is very likely to lead to disaster, the 
point of another release is that stuff has changed.



> 
> 
>>>AFAIK there should be no problems with sharing of /home. It is done
>>>all the time by many of us.
>>>
>>>You already took care of the issue of UID/GID values and that is the
>>>only thing I have ever had problems with in sharing /home between
>>>systems.
>>
>>There is one caveat I'd toss out Jeff, and thats that the options for 
>>setting up a default ext3 system ARE different between FC stuffs, and 
>>debian stuffs.  In my case, the exact same version number of e2fsck 
>>(1.35) refuses to pass or even check, the other installs ext3 
>>filesystems.  So dual booting between FC4 and debian 3.1r1 is at best a 
>>pita.
> 
> 
> Good point, and one I overlooked.  I just assumed that ext3 was ext3.  I
> never anticipated a difference between distributions.
>   
> Thanks for the pointer, Gene.  Filesystem compatibility is a must for
> sharing a partition or even for accessing the other distribution's
> directories. 
> 

Sharing /home between distros (or different releases of the same) is 
likely to cause problems. How compatible, in both directions, are the 
different releases of Gnome? What does Gnome 2.6 do with 2.10 or 2.14 
configuration info?

What about menus? Are Unbuntu menus like Fedora ones? What if you change 
your desktop background to one only on Ubuntu|Fedora? What happens on 
Fedora|Ubuntu? There are many more settings, some more important than these.

Years ago, I had problems with RHL 5.2 and 6.0: I was sharing /home via 
NFS and that raises the same sorts of problems.