Sharing files on tri-boot system

[varaonaid]

Hi,

I'm currently dual (well tribooting) 2 linux distros and win2k. I have several partitions setup (one each for the three os's, /home, swap, and a fat32 shared. Problem, is, I'm finding it very confusing having part of my regularly access docs setup in /home and part in the shared partition.

What I'd like is a single large partition that I can share. As I see it my options are increase the size of /home with the current fat32 partition space and try to use the fs-driver.org program to access from win2k. But I'm a little worried about doing that since one experience I read about caused linux to crash (because of problems from the win side).

Second option being to shrink the /home to only contain program preferences (like /.kde, firefox, etc) and increase the fat32 partition using links within /home to access files there (so it feels like there still in /home). What are the drawbacks to doing this? Am I going to run into any stability or file reading issues? Anything else I'm overlooking?

I considered making /home the fat32 partition but I read this is a real problem for linux as it causes problems with the OS so I wrote it off.

If there are any other ways of accomplishing what I need, please feel free to pitch 'em out there.

Thanks so much in advance. I look forward to hearing your advice.

[unchiujar]

Maybe I didn't read your post carefully enough but have you thought of automatically mounting the FAT32 partition in something similar to /home/userdirectory/shared when linux(both) boots ?

You would have access to the partition contents from linux under the "shared" directory and automatically mounting it on boot saves you the hassle of doing it manually each time.

[varaonaid]

Maybe I didn't read your post carefully enough but have you thought of automatically mounting the FAT32 partition in something similar to /home/userdirectory/shared when linux(both) boots ?

You would have access to the partition contents from linux under the "shared" directory and automatically mounting it on boot saves you the hassle of doing it manually each time.

That's a unique idea and one I hadn't thought of. My mounting it directly in my /home partition, I wouldn't have to mess with adding links, etc. It seems like a much better idea that trying to give Win2k write access to /home (ext3) directly. Sounds like something just waiting to screw up! Thanks.

[unchiujar]

Just making sure you're not making a mistake so here goes:

DO NOT mount in the /home/ directory directly because you will be unable to access the contents of the linux drive (you will be accessing the contents of the FAT 32 partition). Create an empty folder somewhere where is convenient and mount it there. DO NOT use and already existing folder that has files in it because you wont be able to access the files while the FAT32 partition is mounted.
Use something like /home/user/shared or /mnt/shared.

The whole mounting concept is because of problems like yours (mounting network drives and partitions).
Gentoo tutorial on auto mounting (should be adaptable to other distributions). Read from "System setup and configuration" since you probably already have everything installed.
HOWTO Auto mount filesystems (AUTOFS) - Gentoo Linux Wiki)
and a short explanation of mounting
How to mount partitions and filesystems in Linux