Comments on: Memo to Ubuntu Devs: Make Separate Home Default

By: Jerry Nelson

Jerry Nelson — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:38:17 +0000

Looking back on your comments 4 months later:
Do not justify your actions by what you imagine other people want. Strive for excellence and let other people discover new possibilities for themselves — perhaps ones you never imagined.

By: cives

cives — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:41:55 +0000

Dear Fluke (39) and you all,
What are System39 computers? If you are talking about a private label of computers, please specify in order to be much more accurate. I have a Dell Vostro 1700 laptop and an LG X110 netbook (both came with Windows and now have Ubuntu 9.10), and even though they are manufactured by other companies, these brands are well known enough, I think (indeed the LG netbook is supposed to be manufactured by MSI; I did not search about the Dell…); but System39, what is it?… Come on! Is it your store round the corner? Let’s be more specific when offering information…
Never heard of them…
For the rest of normal computers and netbooks, my experience and vote goes to setting up a separate /home partition. That way I feel comfortable no matter what problem, issue, upgrade, etc., can happen to your / root partition.
Moreover, I did a fresh clean install because I had some troubles and I did want to start from zero, and I was amazed that Ubuntu recognized all the settings and configuration, even if it was not my initial purpose. And I do not risk my personal data stored “at home”.
Definitely, setup a separate home partition. You will feel much more relaxed, regardless of whatever problems or updates you would have in the future.
Regards,

By: mocoloco

mocoloco — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:48:29 +0000

Don’t think it can work, as many have pointed out user’s needs vary too much. Some examples: Fluke just mentioned 15GB for /. I had a laptop setup that way, and found it to be plenty of space, so did the same on a newer desktop. After trying and failing to do some video encoding I learned that my app was trying to use /tmp to prep files, and was running out of space.
Ryan says lets give 30GB to / if the drive is over 80GB. OK, but then user y knows she has a 100GB drive, so she can store her 80GB of music no prob and still have 20 for apps, except oops, Ubuntu only left her 70GB for home, so even though she’s only using 7GB on / the rest is wasted.
There is no one size fits all. Leave the manual /home to those who know they want it and how to divide it.

By: Fluke

Fluke — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:27:16 +0000

By default System76 computers come with 15 GB for root, swap as large as RAM, and the rest for /home. This is the way I have my computer set up, the way I have it set up for others, and it seems to work for everyone involved.

By: tommynz1975

tommynz1975 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:18:04 +0000

Just a random thought how about a fake partition?

it behaves and looks like a partition but its safe to resize and such like.

yes I understand then comes the drama of the installer knowing about fake partitions.

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:47:07 +0000

“Everything on one partition is a more efficient use of disk space.”

It’s just not an issue when you have 1.5TB of internal HDD space. Most people aren’t looking at efficiency. They are after convenience.

I agree it’s not a substitute for regular backups. But it can make upgrades so much easier, simpler and faster. And my gut feeling on this issue is that is what increasingly matters to people.

By: delvalle26

delvalle26 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:01:41 +0000

Are people skipping Steve Beattie’s post here? (number 11.) It’s very relevant to the whole discussion here.

The best solution is for the installer to simply look for a home folder. Then give you the option to “import” it with the new install or just wipe it.

If you want a separate partition, the Ubuntu installer makes it easy to set up and gives that option in a friendly GUI manner. If you change your mind, use gparted. A little disclaimer here, I’ve been dist-upgrading (and using update manager) to go through the alphas, betas and full installs for several years… So I haven’t run the Ubuntu installer in while, but it was certainly slick enough when I did…

I’ve personally always made a separate /home partition, my laptop of 4 years is running off the same one. No problems, if there is some old config, I can delete the .folder or .file (only time I’ve ever done that was with .pulse, but that’s for another rant I guess…)

The main reason I prefer the default method now (especially since it lets you partition things as you please anyway…) is for space efficiency.

It doesn’t matter much if you have a big hard drive or several drives. But, with the popularity of netbooks, and SSD drives (which tend to be smaller for now, I’m sure that will change as the price drops…) I’d rather Ubuntu, rightfully, decide to make an default install which lets you utilize as much space as necessary, rather than guessing and putting some proportion which may inconvenience and upset some users (Hey where is my space in home! Why can’t I install or burn a large DVD, /tmp etc.) to just not being the right ratio for power users (or people that want several partitions for example…)

So my memo to the Ubuntu developers is, keep doing what you are doing. Just work to make Ubuntu easy to use, customize, efficient, and continue to offer great defaults for those who want a system as is.

By: namdung

namdung — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:15:52 +0000

Totally agree. I personally am tired of having backup and restore my home folder while installing new versions of Linux (mostly Ubuntu). Now I’ve partitioned by boot to 20 GB and the rest for home directory. I’ve set symbolic links to map the home directory to the separate partition. Now my data is safe during any new installation.

Ubuntu giving this option during installation time is a great option. My vote with you.

By: Pjotr

Pjotr — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:02:55 +0000

Bad idea.

A separate /home is at best useless, because you need external backups anyway. On an external USB hard disk, DVD or such. Not only for your documents, but also for some critical configuration settings (.mozilla, .mozilla-thunderbird for example).

At the level of “minor annoyance” is the matter of disk space waste. Everything on one partition is a more efficient use of disk space.

And at worst a separate /home is a pain when performing a fresh installation: old faulty configuration settings which plague you.

Regards, Pjotr.

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:27:52 +0000

Mounting the old file systems and then removing the old files would probably take longer. Then of course we have the new ext4 file system. It is possible to convert an existing file system like ext3 to ext4 (I think) but that would take so much longer.

Format doesn’t care what’s on the disk. It just clobbers everything in one go. Fast, efficient, reliable, tried and tested.