Xubuntu 14.04/Arch Linux 2014.11.1 Dual Boot

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clockshell

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Hey there!

I have run Xubuntu for a while now and so far it works pretty stable and I can solve upcoming problemss. So now I noticed that the learning curve of Arch Linux might be a new challenge, running it under VM for now.
I really like the plain structure of Arch and asked myself wether I can dual run it on one machine, sharing the same /home partition with Xubuntu. Is this possible?

My partition table (lsblk) looks as it follows (maybe someone can explain to me why it chose /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sda. Might be since I installed Arch on the VM).

Code:
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb      8:16   0 149,1G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   0   142M  0 part /boot
├─sdb2   8:18   0     1K  0 part 
├─sdb5   8:21   0   2,5G  0 part 
├─sdb6   8:22   0    14G  0 part /
└─sdb7   8:23   0 132,5G  0 part /home
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

whereas sdb5 is swap. Is it possible now to decrease /home and put Arch on the new partition, sharing the same home? I don't want to mess up my running system :D
 


Welcome to the forums. I'm sure one of the guys who knows Arch well can help.
 
Ahm... yeah. Sorry. I think I have to regain my forum manners, so if anyone can help I'd be very glad :) If my post lacks any information I'm sorry, I haven't actively participated on forums for a while, but I am very looking forward to get in a community again. It is just more fun to learn :)
 
Hello and welcome to the forums.

I am one of those crazy people who uses Arch on almost all of my systems. ;)

It can be really easy to dual boot with Arch, I am dual booting with Windows 7 right now. You can shrink you /home partition from a live disk system. I would recommend using the Xubuntu live disk and Gparted to do that. Then you can create a new partition in the free space and install Arch there.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_guide
You can also use Xubuntu's Grub installation for booting (just update Grub from your Xubuntu installation after you install Arch). Then at boot time you should see a menu with which you can choose the OS to use.

You may wish to use an Arch derivative such as Manjaro or Antergos.
 
Ahm thanks. Sorry I think I did not make myself clear. My question was, wether I can share my existing /home dir with Arch so I can access the same /home from different booting distributions :)

edit: I think I just realised what a stupid question this was since I can reach mounted partitions from everywhere... nevertheless maybe somebody has experiences wether there are conflicts between config files in the home (if a program puts its config file from a different distribution, does it look different?)

Thank you anyway for your advise, I think I might have a look at those Distros :)
 
Last edited:
Ahm thanks. Sorry I think I did not make myself clear. My question was, wether I can share my existing /home dir with Arch so I can access the same /home from different booting distributions :)

edit: I think I just realised what a stupid question this was since I can reach mounted partitions from everywhere... nevertheless maybe somebody has experiences wether there are conflicts between config files in the home (if a program puts its config file from a different distribution, does it look different?)

Thank you anyway for your advise, I think I might have a look at those Distros :)
If you have config files from different versions of the same program then yes it can cause issues.
 

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