Make a separate partition for /home
What about creating separate /home partition? Many people are doing so. Maybe we should do it by default? Pros/cons in the discussion below (editable are better).
Blueprint information
- Status:
- Complete
- Approver:
- None
- Priority:
- Not
- Drafter:
- None
- Direction:
- Needs approval
- Assignee:
- None
- Definition:
- Superseded
- Series goal:
- None
- Implementation:
-
Unknown
- Milestone target:
- None
- Started by
- Completed by
- Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff
Related branches
Related bugs
Sprints
Whiteboard
Feel free to add your own pros/cons to the list:
Advantages:
+It's easier to reinstall your OS if you screw it up.
+Theoretically it's easier to have several Linux systems on one PC
+Instead of upgrading your system, you can just format the / partition and install new version on it.
Disadvantages:
-Different versions of apps (on different systems) may have incompatible config files, which will lead to conflicts (You can avoid this by installing second system with /home and / on the same partition. Then replacing folders like "Downloads" or "Music" with symlinks to such folders on /home partition, which belongs to the first OS)
-It's another complication
-You can run out of space on one partition while having a lot of space on the another. Especially if you assign wrong sizes to the partitions. It's annoying.
I think it's a power user feature; if they need it, they'll do it. Using several systems with one /home will cause config conflicts anyway and is not sufficient on its own. Moreover, using several Linux systems on once PC is not a use case common enough to tailor defaults for it. Declining blueprint. ~shnatsel
I've heard lot of people complaining about upgrading Ubuntu (personally I just had to reinstall few apps, like Ubuntu Tweak and Simple CCSM, but new install is faster than upgrade). Additionally if someone have few PCs and want the upgrade to be fast (this especially applies to users with slow Internet connection), they will have to do it this way (two partitions) or upgrade from alternate CD. And this is the most common use case.
If we decline this blueprint, we must invent other ways for the upgrade to be easier. (And BTW find some easy way to export settings/files/etc. from Jupiter to Luna. For example users seldom upgrade their own Windows, they just call someone who can do it. But this person propably don't know how to upgrade elementary.).
When I installed Ubuntu first time (10.10), I wasn't aware of such possibility and making separate /home partition with already installed system is hard and confusing. ~grzesiek1e5
