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I'm currently on using 16.04 on my daily-driver host. I am contemplating an upgrade to 18.04, but don't want to take the leap without test-driving 18.04 for a bit. So my question is: Can I run 16.04 and 18.04 side-by-side, choosing at boot which to use? I'm using EFI boot and Grub 2 at the moment (the default grub for 16.04).

BeeOnRope
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    You would need a separate \home partition, but still it's not recommended to use a common home. Possible duplicate of A common /home partition for multiple Linux distributions – pomsky Nov 16 '18 at 21:32
  • I have 14.04, 16.04, 18.04 on SSD drive and 18.04, 18.10 & 19.04 on HDD drive. But each has /home inside / (root) and all my data is in one large shared data partition. Then I can test or change settings in one install without modifying them in other installs. Or do not share /home. Last installed version controls boot, Back up ESP, and understand /EFI/ubuntu/grub.cfg file in the ESP, if you want to make older install default. https://askubuntu.com/questions/957914/dual-boot-14-04-17-04-lost-grub-menu/958220#958220 & https://askubuntu.com/questions/738132/ubuntu-14-04-doesnt-boot-grub-prompt – oldfred Nov 16 '18 at 23:37
  • I have been doing it for years without problem. Separate homes on each root partition work, and I have not had problems with shared /home partition, (using custom wallpaper). – C.S.Cameron Nov 17 '18 at 02:23

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  1. Yes, on different disk partition.

  2. Technically yes, but it can be dangerous, because it contains also settings for software. It can cause problems if different versions of the same program are on different OSs. There is workaround explained here in the first post where is created folder with home folder content and then this folder is accessed from second OS.

Tomek Piechocki
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