On 11/13/2017 06:56 AM, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 10:27:36PM -0500, Dan Norton wrote:
My first Linux install was about one year ago. After some missteps, I have
used Debian 8 in reasonable satisfaction on the desktop during that year.
Now I want to leave 8 in place and do a network install for Debian 9 on the
same disk and switch back and forth at boot time.
If you use a desktop environment (e.g., GNOME or KDE) and want to share
the /home directory between both installations, you might encounter some
problems. In particular, the desktop environments are known for not
behaving well when a newer version updates all the user-specific files
and then an older version tries to access them.
Xfce is what I use and it would surely encounter the same kinds of problems.
For example, the first time you boot to Debian 9 and log in (assume
GNOME for moment), files under ~/.config, ~/.gnome*, and possibly other
places will be modified by the new version of GNOME in Debian 9. There
is no guarantee that when you go back to Debian 8 that the version of
GNOME there will cope will at all with the changed files under ~/.config
and ~/.gnome*. In fact, it is quite likely that it will encounter some
sort of significant problem.
Your safest bet if you really intend to dual-boot in this way is to have
separate /home directories for each install and then use something like
/data to mount into both installations in order to share documents and
data between sessions.
Although I didn't say so, each install would have its own set of
directories. Please say more about how to mount the other installation
and share data. How to mount things in another volume group?
Thanks, Roberto.
- Dan
