I have always kept my personal files on a separate drive, and then deleted the folders in ~/ (such as Documents, Downloads) and replaced them with links to their respective counterparts in my media drive. But this has not been robust – Firefox often recreates ~/Downloads, and other small problems. I recently saw a comment here about having a partition just for the home folder, and was interested.
You don’t have to do a reinstall. The configuration file for mounting partitions on boot is /etc/fstab
You simply add a line to the fstab file which tells the distro to mount the partition to /home on boot. The line must contain the ID of the partition.
This requires creating a separate home partition when partitioning the disk and mounting at
/home. If you want to move the user’s current home directory within the root filesystem, you can use this command while logged in as root/another user (don’t do this if you’re logged in as the user you’re moving).# usermod --move-home --home /newhome/username usernameSome distributions (like debian) offer to do this for you automatically at install.
Iirc most Debian based distros offer the /home as a separate partition as part of the setup process.
Do you want a separate partition or a separate disk? And do you want to do this on a fresh install or a running one?
A fresh installation, as I was going to change distros soon. I got tired of fighting against Ubuntu’s forced things like installing certain apps as Snap packages.
Your installer may just have an option to set this up (I believe debian does does) You just need to get your extra disks/partitions prepared. You can use gparted to create partitions on the drive. If you do not have the option during install, you can create the partition and move the files manually, then edit the /etc/fstab file to automatically mount the partition at /home. Here is a quick guide, but there is tons of information on the fstab file on the internet.
In Calamares, which most Arch distros seem to use, it’s easy: manual partitioning, you set up your ESP/EFI/whatever boot partition, then swap partition if you need, then a partition with mount point
/where the OS and stuff is installed, and then one more with mount point/homewhich will be the home directory.
ⓘ Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!
Something to think about: your personal files are on a different drive. If this drive were to become your home directory, it would also end up containing the other files and folders that are in your home directory (like .config, .local folders). Would you be okay with that? Also there is a possibility you might need to format this drive is you want to use it as the /home mountpoint.
