Do I really need a /home partition?

[MGBguy]

This is from an old guy...with lots of "analog" slide, negative, paper photos... now tiff and jpeg files. These are the MOST IMPORTANT files in my world.

Having a home, or better yet, a media partition/drive is a godsend if you upload/save/scan a lot of photos.

I back-up and back-up again my current family photos; recent digital photos and a lifetime of old photos, slides, and negatives scanned.

If you "live in the moment" a home partition is optional. Personally, I would opt for a home partition and also save to an external/
usb drive or burn to multiple cd/dvds anything of importance on a regular basis!!! Years from now you WILL appreciate this.

Operating systems will come and go...your (now) digital data should be forever! 

Yours truly, ...a sentimental ol' fool. 

[Animal]

I have always created a separate home partition on the same physical drive as my / and a storage backup partition on a separate physical drive and have never lost a "bit" of data.

But this is just my way and may not even be necessary but it has always worked for me.

[Ferdes Fides]

 
Operating systems will come and go...your (now) digital data should be forever! 

Hello,

Archiving  /home would allow you to put it on any LINUX system or any drive.
I just want one image file for my "everything" partition.  Doesn't really matter
tho, backups are backups.


cheers,

patrick013

[Crow]

Never had a /home partition, never will.

Install, update, install my needed applications make a Live DVD.

I keep in Documents those thing that I'm working on, back up on a separate partition and once every week to an external hard drive.

Last time I had problems, just copied the archives at Documents, installed, updated, made a new Live DVD and that was all.

BTW I worked an entire day from my Live DVD, a real life saver       

[Georgetoon]

Never had a /home partition, never will.

Install, update, install my needed applications make a Live DVD.

I keep in Documents those thing that I'm working on, back up on a separate partition and once every week to an external hard drive.

Last time I had problems, just copied the archives at Documents, installed, updated, made a new Live DVD and that was all.

BTW I worked an entire day from my Live DVD, a real life saver       

So you're making a Live CD (DVD) of your desktop and all applications?  if something goes wrong, you work from the Live DVD in a pinch?  But reinstall everything from the Live CD (DVD) and you're back up and running. correct?

[AndrzejL]

Yes - correct. its called remastering Your installation and is very easy and handy to do with PCLinuxOS... But still nothing stops You from remastering while having a separate /home partition...

PCLinuxOS is rock solid - correct but user can make mistakes. This is why I prefer to keep home separated. If I mess up - I can reinstall and I wont loose my personalized settings.

Regards.

Andy

[ElCuervo]

I don't need thumbs, but I would just as soon go without them as to go without a /home partition. It is so easy to reinstall the OS with a clean /home that it doesn't even make me blink when it's necessary. That is one of the nicest features of Linux to me - reformat the / partition and leave the /home alone, reinstall, and bang, all your settings and other goodies are still intact.

Of course, as we all know by now, sometimes you can't keep your /home partition unformatted, so I also keep a /data partition separate from /home. That way, whenever it is necessary to reformat my /home, I don't really have to think twice about doing so.

[Bald Brick]

Having /home on a partition of its own means that you use your disk space less economically than if you don't, but (as so many have pointed out) it also means that you won't lose your data or personal settings if you reinstall.

But are retaining both your data and your settings as important? And do both data and settings have to be located in /home (whether that is on a separate partition or not)? You could well keep your data on a separate partition and simply create symlinks to it from /home. Reinstalling from wouldn't then overwrite you data.

And if you want to retain your settings instead? If you reinstall from a fresh remaster, that won't technically retain your settings; it will simply restore them.

So if you are the only user on your system you can well retain both data and settings when you reinstall -- even if you don't have a /home partition.

On the other hand, Linux is designed as a multi-user system. If you have several users, some of them might be less than pleased if you erase their home directories every time you make a slightly larger systemwide change.

(And if you weren't using PCLinuxOS there might be other directories that you might want to keep safe from a reinstall -- and I'm not only talking about a separate /boot partition....)
 

[Crow]

Never had a /home partition, never will.

Install, update, install my needed applications make a Live DVD.

I keep in Documents those thing that I'm working on, back up on a separate partition and once every week to an external hard drive.

Last time I had problems, just copied the archives at Documents, installed, updated, made a new Live DVD and that was all.

BTW I worked an entire day from my Live DVD, a real life saver       

So you're making a Live CD (DVD) of your desktop and all applications?  if something goes wrong, you work from the Live DVD in a pinch?  But reinstall everything from the Live CD (DVD) and you're back up and running. correct?

Yes, georgetoon and is easy. I must say that the Live DVD runs a little slow, like if your in Windows     but is usable    that's why I'm working in another Live USB (those things are faster), just to keep it at hand.

[uncleV]

Yes, georgetoon and is easy. I must say that the Live DVD runs a little slow, like if your in Windows     but is usable    that's why I'm working in another Live USB (those things are faster), just to keep it at hand.

Is it possible to mount your Live DVD .iso on the HD as it is done in "poor man's installation"?

[Crow]

Yes, georgetoon and is easy. I must say that the Live DVD runs a little slow, like if your in Windows     but is usable    that's why I'm working in another Live USB (those things are faster), just to keep it at hand.

Is it possible to mount your Live DVD .iso on the HD as it is done in "poor man's installation"?

Never did it.