Hi!
I have been unable to find info on how to install Fedora 38 Spin/XFCE alongside other Linux distros if that is possible. I have seen references to similar setups under earlier versions.
Right now I am struggling with some very basic questions:
1 - Is it obligatory to create a separate /home partition or is it possible to keep the /home folder within the root tpartition?
2 - Must a boot partition be used or can I proceed like with the other distros, specially when I would like to keep Grub working under its current distro?
3 - Can the root partition have an ext4 filesystem?
If I wanted the Xfce desktop on the Fedora Jam Spin I would install the Jam Spin then install the âxfce desktopâ group with dnf.
Whatâs wrong with a separate /home? It makes it convenient for snaphots with btrfs tools to back up your data.
You can choose the layout (within reason) and Ext4 can be chosen over BTRFS.
All distroâs use a boot partition.
Grub should be able to find and retain your other boot, in fact Fedoraâs installer should just modify grub at the end of installation. You are going to need to use the custom partitioning tool of the installer though to keep things as you expect.
I have several distros on the disk. Could I have one /home partition for each or somehow a âuniversalâ /home partition, perhaps with individual folder for each distro ???
All my distros have their â/bootâ stuff in the â/bootâ folder in the root partition.
My machines do have a boot partition, just in case, but I have never used it.
Perhaps if UEFI machines must have aEn SP partition that is a form of booting partition? Is that what you mean?
I ask because my machines are multibooting from external harddrives which are configured to boot in both UEFI and Bios machines. So of course they do use ESP partitions when Booting under UEFI. They never use the other âbootâ partition, because when they boot from Bios they use the â/bootâ folder in the root partition of the system holding grub.
Yes to both. Since /home contains the users data and is not OS specific it could easily be used for all the various distros, or only one, or a subset of the total.
When it remains within the main root filesystem if one finds it necessary to do a new clean install that data is commonly lost during the install. As a separate partition it may be left untouched during an install and reused.
Your method of using separate hard drives seems wise, and the only change I might suggest would be to set up for using a separate /home partition for each. Whether that is one partition on the internal drive or on the drive where the OS resides is up to users choice.
Your method of using separate hard drives seems wise, and the only change I might suggest would be to set up for using a separate /home partition for each. Whether that is one partition on the internal drive or on the drive where the OS resides is up to users choice.
I really like this idea, but it is not clear to me how to implement it. Do you mean one home partition for each disk or one home partition for each distro ? Does thar mean that I will have several partitions named or labeled âhomeâ? If so in which way are they identified as being the home partition for a certain root partition ? I am talking of several OSes in the external disk.It has been working fine with homes within their roots, but the possibility of preserving data when clean installing or repairing system is very atractive.
Users choice. One partition for /home could be used for all, some, or one distro install. Select what works best for you.
The only thing to consider here is if the external drive may be used to boot on multiple machines then that drive likely would need its own /home. Also, if the username (and UID) is different on different distros then it would be best to have a /home/USER for each username used.