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What I would like to do is move away from using VMs for running linux inside a Windows 7 host to a dual-boot setup. I know there are ways of mounting ext based partitions from windows and NTFS partitons in linux easily.

If I want to have a single "home" directory for my Windows 7 user and linux user, how would I go about this? Just create an NTFS partition and use is as a separate drive in Windows for storing files and mount it as my home dir in linux? Are there any permissions problems I might run into?

Any advice would be welcome, it's been a while since I've attempted a dual-boot setup!

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2 Answers 2

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That is almost what I do with my setup, except I make a symbolic link to the windows directory

ln -s /host/users/me/Documents windir

I am not sure it is a good idea to run the HOME directly on NTFS. After you login, you can always change the HOME variable, too.

I am using Wubi and it automatically mounts the windows partition on /host. If your Linux installation does not automatically mount the windows partition, you should set it up so it does.

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  • Do you mount your windows drive in linux at a mount point somewhere in /mnt then symlink your home dir to it? Would you be able to go into a little bit more detail please?
    – Daniel Murphy
    Commented Jul 30, 2012 at 21:51
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Perhaps this would be better as a comment than an answer, but apparently I can't comment yet.

Putting /home on an NTFS partion is a mess. I know, I've tried it. Weird permissions issues and such, Windows wants to "own" the files and Linux throws an error about the user not owning their home folder. I'd keep the home directories of Windows and Linux separate, and use another partition for sharing data between the two OSes. It would be awesome to have a shared home directory, but in my experience it's way more trouble than it's worth.

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