Shared home directories between distros

[Bill Campbell]

On Sun, Feb 05, 2006, David Bandel wrote:
>On 2/5/06, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Here's a little conundrum to take our minds off red and blue states for a while.
>>
>> I like to tinker with multiple distros, but sharing a home directory
>> can create problems with widely varying levels of kde, gnome etc. and
>> with varying conceps of a suitable uid (some start with 500, some
>> start with 1000, etc.).
>>
>> What I would like to wind up with is an arrangement similar to classes
>> in an OO structure such that all hidden files go in a unique place and
>> other files go in a shared place in a home directory and have this
>> automatically resolved, ie

We started doing something like this years ago when we started
using diskless Linux boxes.  With these boxes, their home
directories were under /home/username on the server, and each
diskless station will have /home/username/hostid directories on
the server where things like the .kde directory live.

The diskless systems use the amd automounter to mount user
directories under the /homes/username directory, and their /home
directory would contain symbolic links /home/username ->
/homes/username/hostname, and /home/username has a symbolic
linked directory /home/usrname/home -> /homes/username.

This allows each workstation to have its own configuration for
things dependant on monitor size, mouse, etc. while also having
easy access to central data which isn't dependant on the
workstation.

Bill
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