[SOLVED] Change the "Home" drive/folder

Good day,
My laptop has two drives; one SSD for the system and one HD for the data.
By default Zorin sets the home in the same drive where it is installed the OS but I want to retain my DATA drive for all my documents.

I have no problems with adding "locations" to the file manager, but most of the software will respond to the OS and point to its OS's Home.

QUESTION:
Is there a way to assign my DATA drive as the Home?

Thanks in advance and have a great day.
--m

Hi wizaxx,

No problem - you just need to set up your drives using the 'something else' method. I am not sure how to setup 'trim' on your SSD but assume you have done that? [http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2013/12/enable-trim-ssd-better-performance/]
Basically you create your ESP (for EFI) at start of drive - only needs to be 35 Mb in size. This should be marked as boot, esp.
Next you can create a root partition of 30 Gb (or 50 Gb if you prefer) and add a swap area double the amount of RAM after you have created your root '/' partition. Now I'm not sure how SSD's show up in GParted (the partition editor that runs at installation time when you choose the 'something else' method) but you should get some indication of size. Now your HDD will definitely show up in GParted - format that to ext4 and mark it '/home' - you now have your home folder on your HDD. I've never had an SSD so not sure how it will show up.

Thanks for the swift response.
I guess I was not clear, I already have Zorin installed and my DATA HD is full of ... well, data - and I don't want to lose it.
As I said, I have mounted the HD and I can use it without any problem, however a few of the software are not seeing the HD and opening/saving files is a pain the ... neck.

From what I can understand there is no ways to change/redirect /home to a different drive after installation, is that the case?

Again, thanks for the help.
--m

Hi, Can you give me the low down of where you are wanting /home to be? As I have reinstalled the system various times there should be no issue moving /home elsewhere similarly. Bear in mind that you would not be able to make an ntfs partition as /home. As all distributions these days are able to read ntfs partitions this shouldn't be an issue. The best option for data sharing is given in my tutorial video here:

https://vimeo.com/266410509

Hey... thanks for the once more swift response.

Currently my HD is mounted at /mnt/9A06A0C006A09EAF and I would like my HOME to point at it.

I have done some research and I have found that HOME should be set in /etc/passwd
I have also found out that usermod -d should edit the passwd

.. so ether editing the passwd file manually or through usermod would change my HOME

Is that working in ZorinOS?
if not what do you recommend?

Cheers,
--m

On the same subject:
My home desktop is also a multi drive system and would be very useful to have an option for selecting "where" one wants the HOME to be located during installation.
I believe that would be an impressive feature for the next release.... oh, I should probably post this in the suggestions, eh?!

Not sure if I created incompatibilities but seem that this could work:
1. Make a new Account: I have created a new account in the Settings-Users -which obviously crates its own /home.

2. Change the new account's home: so off I went on terminal and tried to change the new-user's Home with usermod - yeah, right! way too easy eh!? usermod requires root !!

3. Create sudo credentials:

Code:

sudo passwd

created the unix credentials to access root

4. Login as root:

Code:

su

is now making me the root!!! so it is was time to change the /home of the new user

5. Change /home:

Code:

usermod -d /the new home directory -m username

6. test: here is where I got some surprises:
first of all the desktop did not load properly, then the pad did not work and then it froze a couple of time, but after four power-off interventions, the user loaded into the newly ssigned /HOME.

The reason I am not marking this [SOLVED] is because having had so many glitches I am not sure it is the right procedure and would like an educated opinion before changing my main user's /HOME.

Any comments... please?
Thanks in advance,
--m

As Zorin is a fork of Ubuntu I would advise you follow this guide:

https://www.maketecheasier.com/move-home-folder-ubuntu/

OK, so I followed the guide ...
obviously is not 100% compatible with my situation as the HD is already mounted but worked.
The overall guide actually helped me to do better understand the process, but is really over-killing as usermod has done the exact same thing in a fraction of the time.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.
..m