[clug] Dual boot and shared home folder

Rodney Peters rodneyp at iinet.net.au
Mon Mar 23 20:49:19 MDT 2015


On Tue, 24 Mar 2015 01:57:24 David C wrote:
> ExtX on Windows has never been much fun.  Cygwin might do it, but it always
> irritates me. NTFS is journalised to a degree, but has less than stellar
> performance under Linux.
> I've had reasonable success using a super small Linux VM running Samba to
> share my Linux drive back to me on Windows.
> Now I just run a NAS and keep anything of value there.
> 
> David
> 
> On 23 Mar 2015 11:06 pm, "Paul Rands" <lists at paulrands.com> wrote:
> > Hi Guys,
> > 
> > I have unfortunately found the need to go back to a dual boot system for
> > my PC.
> > 
> > The old PC is a bit too slow to run a Windows VM all that well, so I am
> > left with little choice.
> > 
> > Was planning to chuck Windows on a separate hard disk, and use Grub to
> > select drives.
> > 
> > I want to avoid doubling up on a "home" folder, and was hoping for some
> > suggestions to what I could use. Should I use an NTFS partition (which
> > isn't journalised and a pain the arse) or should I look at an EXT3 / 4
> > driver for Windows 8?
> > 
> > Thanks in advance
> > --
> > 
> > Paul Rands
> > lists at paulrands.com <mailto:lists at paulrands.com>
> > 
> > --
> > linux mailing list
> > linux at lists.samba.org
> > https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/linux

Definitely agree with separate HDD for Win, to avoid repetitive booting hassles.

Regardless of whether an Ext 3 driver, Samba or NTFS-3g is used I would avoid sharing the whole "home" 
partition. My practice is to have a separate partition for only Documents & Downloads. Does require a bit of 
messing about setting up your Desktop Environment to use non-standard paths.  Similar to David's 
approach ? but without the need for a separate server.

Any sharing of FS between Win & Linux invokes some inter-operability issues that need to be worked 
around.  See

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-faq

A separate NAS or Samba server would take care of most of those issues. It implies separate box, ethernet 
switch, etc, which I am guessing you are trying to avoid by sticking with a single "old PC". Another 
consideration is that some of the commercial NAS have very relaxed permissions, which might not be 
acceptable for "anything of value"

I have briefly used an Ext 2 driver for Windows XP.  It worked OK, although not capable of honouring Linux 
permissions. Does have the advantage of operating on a reliable FS, with the trade-off of much more 
fragmented development effort than that for NTFS-3g.


Rod   



More information about the linux mailing list