Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
Hiyas Daniel, I'd also like to see the simple ability to make (and recommend) a /home partion rather than ask a n00b to delve into the tender mercies of manual partitioning. Hopefully, one day the dev team may catch their breath and incorporate it. :) Regards, Phill. On 26 December 2010 13:20, Daniel Gross daniel.gr...@utoronto.ca wrote: Hello I just had a really bad experience while working with Ubuntu 10.10, which suggested to me another reason for having a separate home folder. My ext4 boot partition with all my data became inaccessible -- not mountable, not checkable, only accessible via dd or ddrescue, but the data coming out is very partial (the image i am getting claims to be of type ext2, for some reason, so can't be checked either). I had just started a new virtual machine, and then the hard drive started spinning at full speed, with the computer not responding. After a while I felt that the only way out is a hard reset. Unfortunately, either the spinning out of control, or the hard reset, or both, have damaged the ext4 partition in a significant way. Interestingly, a second NTFS partition (with my preinstalled windows xp pro on it) wasn't affected, and i was able to boot windows xp without problems, but not able to access the ext4 partition, also not with a special ext4 file system utility. After much trial and error i still can not properly access the ext4 partition, getting a drive exclusively in use by other process or mounted error?. I happened to have another 320 SATA drive around, which i am not freshly installing with ubuntu 10.10. To avoid such problems with the boot partition in the future, I decided to the the following partitioning scheme. Ubuntu Boot partition -- 40 GB, ext4 Primary NTFS partition of size 220 GB, mounted at /windows Primary NTFS partition of size 60 GB, not mounted. My plan is to move my home directory to the 220GB partition. Like this if the ubuntu ext4 boot partition fails again, i will hopefully be able to access all my data from both windows and ubuntu rescue facilities. So, the reason to move the home directory to a different partition (and file system type), relates to not putting all your files in one ext4 boot partition basket. Daniel On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Daniel Gross daniel.gross at utoronto.ca https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss wrote: * Hello, ** ** I have finally taken the plunge and installed the latest Ubuntu instead ** of Windows XP (while still running Windows xp in a VM). * Congrats :) * It would be great if a tool existed that supports moving the home folder ** from the boot partition to a data partition. Ideally, the tool would ** support creating a data partition by resizing the boot partition, as ** well as recommending a minimum size for the data partition based on the ** size of the home folder. ** ** Ideally, i think, such a setup could already be suggested during the ** Ubuntu installation process. Perhaps, under an advanced setup heading ** -- removing the need to move the home partition. ** ** The main benefit for such a setup, is that it allows reinstalling Ubuntu ** without loosing the users data, which would be safely sitting in a ** separate data partition. * Putting it on a separate partition isn't actually necessary. Currently when Ubuntu is directed to install to a partition which previously had Ubuntu on it, it reinstalls only what is necessary, leaving things such as user settings intact. So this is effectively already done, just without the necessity for multiple partitions. * Also, during (re)installation, Ubuntu could recognize the existence of a ** data partition that includes a home folder, and suggest configuring ** itself accordingly. * This is an interesting idea. I'm not sure what we currently suggest when another Ubuntu is already installed, but a kind of reinstall/upgrade option would probably be useful. Again, we'd only need the one partition for it though. * Taking this idea a step further, perhaps its possible to also preserve ** the packages that were installed, so that these remain intact in the ** data partition also. Perhaps a better name for the data partition could ** be User partition, which includes all user configured, tailored, ** created data. As opposed to the System partition which includes the base ** OS only, and that can be reinstalled at will. * Technically, every part of Ubuntu (including the base OS) is considered just an installed package, so doing this wouldn't be simple. I'm also having trouble seeing the use case for this - most people (in my experience) reinstall Ubuntu as a way to clean up cruft (or apparent cruft - a fresh install often feels faster just by placebo effect). Presumably they would want such packages removed, else why would they reinstall? They're may be something I'm missing, but I can't see reinstalling
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
On 26 December 2010 10:55, Phillip Susi ps...@cfl.rr.com wrote: This is what manual partitioning is for. Also /home can not be on NTFS since it does not support ownership and permissions. Well, yes and no: manual partitioning is for advanced users who know what they are doing. The fact that it's the only way you can install Ubuntu with a separate /home partition isn't easy for the average user, who doesn't know what the benefits of a separate /home are in the first place. What would help is a simple option such as Install Ubuntu on the whole disk using separate partitions for user and operating system files, which would choose sensible defaults for /, swap and /home and create the partitions accordingly. A look at other distros that already do that could help as highlighted in this review from The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/11/ubuntu_10_10_review/ Bruno -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Evan Huus eapa...@gmail.com wrote: This is an important point. The 'average' user isn't going to be able to take advantage of a separate home partition, even if the installer does it automatically for them. Reinstalling while preserving user data is already possible with a single / partition, and more complicated recovery operations (such as the one which started this thread) are not going to occur to someone who doesn't know enough to manually partition in the first place. Admittedly, the installer could make it easier for power-users to divide up their partitions without specifying every detail manually, but I don't think it would provide any functional benefit, just usability benefit. Evan And let's not forget that for those who don't need/understand what is a separate home partition, choosing to do so is likely to become a problem in the future when the partition sizing is found to be incorrect/insufficient. IMHO for 'regular' users the ability to reinstall without wiping the /home surpasses most of the benefits of using an isolated partition. -- João Luís Marques Pinto GetDeb Team Leader http://www.getdeb.net http://blog.getdeb.net -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
Hi Joao, the same would apply to the option of encrypting their home area, which is on the install CD and causes no end of grief on support. They get the option of that, but not a seperate /home partition? Bearing in mind we are dealing mostly with Windows users, is the encryption part really needed as a default question - or only available in advanced? Regards, Phill. On 28 December 2010 15:54, Joao Pinto joao.pi...@getdeb.net wrote: On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Evan Huus eapa...@gmail.com wrote: This is an important point. The 'average' user isn't going to be able to take advantage of a separate home partition, even if the installer does it automatically for them. Reinstalling while preserving user data is already possible with a single / partition, and more complicated recovery operations (such as the one which started this thread) are not going to occur to someone who doesn't know enough to manually partition in the first place. Admittedly, the installer could make it easier for power-users to divide up their partitions without specifying every detail manually, but I don't think it would provide any functional benefit, just usability benefit. Evan And let's not forget that for those who don't need/understand what is a separate home partition, choosing to do so is likely to become a problem in the future when the partition sizing is found to be incorrect/insufficient. IMHO for 'regular' users the ability to reinstall without wiping the /home surpasses most of the benefits of using an isolated partition. -- João Luís Marques Pinto GetDeb Team Leader http://www.getdeb.net http://blog.getdeb.net -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Phill Whiteside phi...@ubuntu.com wrote: Hi Joao, the same would apply to the option of encrypting their home area, which is on the install CD and causes no end of grief on support. They get the option of that, but not a seperate /home partition? Bearing in mind we are dealing mostly with Windows users, is the encryption part really needed as a default question - or only available in advanced? Regards, Phill. Hi Phill, I don't have data to support this, but a significant part of today's devices are mobile devices. I truly believe that the risk of keeping unencrypted data on a mobile device is so high that encryption more than an option should be a default. Encryption provides a clear and unarguable benefit for most users. I am not sure to which support problems are you referring to, unless you are doing low level file management (advanced user), home encryption is transparent. I am sorry but I am unable to identify any clear benefit for most users to keep the data on a different partition. -- João Luís Marques Pinto GetDeb Team Leader http://www.getdeb.net http://blog.getdeb.net -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
Hello Phill, I think you can compare the benefit of having user folder on a separate partition to users having a backup. Most of the time a user does not need the backup. But when the unforeseen event occurs that requires a restore, then those users who have a backup will clearly benefit. Similarly, those users who loose access to the boot partition (such as due to a hard disk crash) will clearly benefit from having the data on a separate partition. At last in my case i could have restored a working system much more easily without data loss. In the future when bandwidth will increase and off site backup of all data stored on a, say, 300 GB hard drive become common, then i guess a separate data partition will lose its necessity. thanks, Daniel On Tue, 2010-12-28 at 18:11 +, Joao Pinto wrote: On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Phill Whiteside phi...@ubuntu.com wrote: Hi Joao, the same would apply to the option of encrypting their home area, which is on the install CD and causes no end of grief on support. They get the option of that, but not a seperate /home partition? Bearing in mind we are dealing mostly with Windows users, is the encryption part really needed as a default question - or only available in advanced? Regards, Phill. Hi Phill, I don't have data to support this, but a significant part of today's devices are mobile devices. I truly believe that the risk of keeping unencrypted data on a mobile device is so high that encryption more than an option should be a default. Encryption provides a clear and unarguable benefit for most users. I am not sure to which support problems are you referring to, unless you are doing low level file management (advanced user), home encryption is transparent. I am sorry but I am unable to identify any clear benefit for most users to keep the data on a different partition. -- João Luís Marques Pinto GetDeb Team Leader http://www.getdeb.net http://blog.getdeb.net -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
