/home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

[ahurd]

I saved my Feisty /home in a separate partition before reinstalling Gutsy. In install I specified mount point for this partition as /home. I now find that Gutsy has placed this /home as a subdirectory of a generic /home for myself as user. How can I rectify this. Thanks.

[ghillan]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

can you post the content post /etc/fstab file ?

[ahurd]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

Here it is:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda3
UUID=d27dc28a-1473-4b17-82ff-aee70fed41b3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda8
UUID=1412c0c6-ffae-4e45-b626-7801da9fe5cd /home ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda1
UUID=2A740A75740A4453 /media/sda1 ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda2
UUID=8078DFDB78DFCDD2 /media/sda2 ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/sda6
UUID=8e8e0e2a-f329-4122-986a-112ccb09295c /media/sda6 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda7
UUID=69a1945d-45fd-4fad-b63b-27e23403eb90 /media/sda7 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda9
UUID=98dea409-159c-46c3-a1ee-b814cd018343 /media/sda9 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/sda5
UUID=7185a6fc-e27d-4411-ab1f-49054367b077 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec 0 0

[monte48lowes]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

The files you copied to the new partition have been copied to that partition as '/home/ahurd'. Rather than '/ahurd'. The simple fix for this is to move your user folder to the correct location.

I would recommend reinstalling gutsy. While in the live CD session before performing the install, mount /dev/sda8 and remove the files the have been written by the recent install. Then move your old home folder to the root of the partition. Finally complete the install.

For clarification: The actual directory '/home' resides on the root partition. The contents of that directory would then reside on the actual partition in which the fstab points to. For example I have my winXP partition mounted in '/media/winxp'. The 'winxp' used here only resides on the root partition, not as part of my winXP filesystem.

Mike

[ahurd]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

Responses and queries:

"The files you copied to the new partition have been copied to that partition as '/home/ahurd'. Rather than '/ahurd'. The simple fix for this is to move your user folder to the correct location."

I simply created /dev/sda8, then used Krusader to copy from /home in Feisty to this partition before reinstall ( I did this in failsafe in Feisty since it was crippled). Where in fstab do you find any reference to /home/ahurd? And I don't understand your simple fix.

"I would recommend reinstalling gutsy. While in the live CD session before performing the install, mount /dev/sda8 and remove the files the have been written by the recent install. Then move your old home folder to the root of the partition. Finally complete the install."

The only file written was empty Desktop. How do I move old /home folder (presumably the one which is now a subfolder of /home?) to the root of the partition? FYI, the contents of /home folder in / in my present Gutsy install appears as:
/albert containing empty /Desktop
/home containing everything in the Feisty /home I copied to /dev/sda8
compare.txt a text file

"For clarification: The actual directory '/home' resides on the root partition. The contents of that directory would then reside on the actual partition in which the fstab points to. "

As you can see from above, this is not true in my Gutsy install. In fstab /home points to /dev/sda8 and the contents of this partition is the original Feisty /home. All I did when installing was to specify mount point of /home as /dev/sda8!
Thank you for your response. I await further clarification

[ahurd]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

One more further comment/question on:
"I would recommend reinstalling gutsy. While in the live CD session before performing the install, mount /dev/sda8 and remove the files the have been written by the recent install. Then move your old home folder to the root of the partition. Finally complete the install."

Who is to say that a reinstall would not repeat the incorrect placement via mount point that this install did. Further, wouldn't mounting /dev/sda8, and moving home folder to root be wiped out by install?

[monte48lowes]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

I am thinking that the files you had copied while in Feisty included the directory '/home' rather than just the contents of '/home' which would be the directory '/albert'. There is a chance I can be wrong of course, but this makes the most sense as to what happened.

The fix I am speaking of is to move the folder '/albert' from /home/home/albert' to '/home/albert'. I am guessing, however, that you already have a directory '/home/albert'. So in order to move the old directory from the Feisty install to it's correct location the current directory named 'albert' would have to be deleted first.

Let me know if I have the situation correctly assessed.

Mike

[ahurd]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

Thanks so much. If I remember correctly I think that is exactly what happened. Questions: 1) How do I move folders without copying? 2) Does anything else, eg fstab, have to be changed?

[monte48lowes]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

This is where I recommended booting into a live session, mounting /dev/sda8, deleting the folder 'albert', move folder /home/albert' to '/albert'. Nothing in /etc/fstab needs to be changed. I am concerned that you might not be able to login after you reboot into your normal installation. There are some security files that are installed for X11. These might not allow you to login without updating them. That is why I recommended reinstalling, unless of course there are several changes that you have made to the system.

You can move the files in a live CD session by using konqueror or dolphin.

Mike

[ahurd]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

Apparently in /dev/sda8 I had /home with subdirs /albert and /mythtvI. I decided while in Gutsy to try to copy or move contents of /home in sda8 (/albert and/mythtv to another partition to be mounted in reinstall as /home. I have another question. Apparently in last install, the installer not only put contents of sda8 in /home (/home and its contents), but also an empty /albert folder. Am I to assume that in next install, when it sees /albert and /mythtv, it will be clever enough to not install an empty /albert (it couldn't anyway) and this was my problem because it didn't see /albert inside /home and created an empty /albert?

[monte48lowes]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

You are correct. As long as you name the first user during install the same as the folder is labelled and the password is the same.

First user --> 'albert'

Current home directory label --> 'albert'

'albert' = 'albert' => GOOD

Mike

[klerfayt]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

You are correct. As long as you name the first user during install the same as the folder is labelled and the password is the same.

First user --> 'albert'

Current home directory label --> 'albert'

'albert' = 'albert' => GOOD

Mike

actually it's not that simple. you have to have same user ID (I don't know maybe installer fixes the ID automatically) ... and most probably it is anyways if only one person uses the computer

[monte48lowes]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

You might have a point there with the user id. I have never had a problem though, most likely because I usually only work with a single user account. I will look into that more. Thanks!

Mike

[klerfayt]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

You are correct. As long as you name the first user during install the same as the folder is labelled and the password is the same.

First user --> 'albert'

Current home directory label --> 'albert'

'albert' = 'albert' => GOOD

Mike

actually it's not that simple. you have to have same user ID (I don't know maybe installer fixes the ID automatically) ... and most probably it is anyways if only one person uses the computer

on the second thought there shouldn't really be any problem with user ID (there really is only two logical choices - reuse or reset to new value). But the password part is totally wrong - there is no need to create the same password, and password is not stored in $HOME.

[monte48lowes]

Re: /home incorrectly installed by Gutsy

Thanks for the correction. The passwords that would be stored in $HOME would be with kwalletmanager which is completely seperate from the user pw.

Mike