Sharing Home folder between installed distros

[asuprem]

On my computer, I have Ubuntu 11.1 and Kubuntu 11.1 installed as dual-boot. When I started, I specified completely separate partitions for both of them, but I now realize I want them to share the same home folder, i.e. the same desktop (I keep everything on my desktop). Any way to do that now, such as any software or any sort of reinstall? (P.S. - My Ubuntu partition is completely set up but I will be fine deleting and reinstalling Kubuntu).

[rubberman]

This is possible - I do it myself, but you will want to be sure that your user and group ids are the same on both systems. Not the name, but the id number.

[asuprem]

Actually, here's what I did. I first backed up my data, then I deleted both partitions.

Then I installed Kubuntu with manual partition with the following partitions:

10GB - swap area; primary
10GB - ext4 journaling; mount point: /; primary
600 GB - ext4 journaling; mount pont /home; logical
20GB - unallocated.

Then I rebooted and started Ubuntu install with the following:

10GB - swap area, logical (primary wouldn't work, for some reason)
10GB - ext4 journaling; mount point: /; primary

select the 600 GB allocated for Kubuntu home and click "change"
select ext4 journaled, NOT "do not use this partition"
select mount point as /home.

Install. Reboot. Gloat.

[rubberman]

Yes. As long as you created your user account(s) and group(s) in the same order, then Kubuntu and Ubuntu should have given you the same account and group ids. However, if you just wanted Kubuntu because it uses the KDE desktop, you could have installed that on Ubuntu after the basic installation, and select which desktop you prefer when you log in.

[asuprem]

I tried that, but maybe it was my fault for not installing correctly, because the Gnome taskbar remained with the KDE taskbar. I didn't really like that.

[khajvah]

I dont know what you did but you can install kde desktop on ubuntu. Just run
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, then choose kubuntu from login screen.