separate partition for home

[enhu]

Will the /home partition be overwritten when you install another distro even when you first installed in separate a partition?

say, you have currently installed ubuntu in your computer and the user's home is in another partition. but you change your mind and once again want to install new derivative but still use the /home as your home. will the files inside be overwritten?

hope you understand this

[Rob]

it all depends on how you set up the partitioning for the new install. you can ignore the partition you're currently using as /home when you install a new os, then mount it as home after the fact..

[enhu]

I'll install mint RC 12 this time.
ignoring it will create another home directory in the new OS, how do I set it to actually mount the home partition and not the directory?

[Rob]

After it boots, you can edit the /etc/fstab to specify where you want to mount it.. maybe take a picture of your current /etc/fstab so you can mimick it after the new install.

[akshaysulakhe]

above method should work,but i dont think so it will get formatted even if u assign it at install time,m not sure about it though,if it says u need to format it,then simply exclude it from the list.Also dont change the type of Filesystem...and if there is so imp at home,just copy the data and later paste it,coz there will be problem with some files if u plan to change the distro or sometimes if u change a version...Hope this helps.. :-)

[enhu]

yep. i did it. i exclude the /home during the installation.
I didn't point the current users home to mount the /home partition as i can access it anyway after adding it in my fstab..

what is the difference when adding the lists in fstab, is it better to use the UUID or simply just /dev/sda...?

[akshaysulakhe]

UUID is global...i wud prefer that over the names like /devsda or whatever it is...its easier with some upgrades and all with uuid...

[Jesi]

You can also edit /ect/passwd/ and change the home directory on a per user basis. This is great if you want several accounts to share the same settings or if you have changed your username since your previous install.