3

This is my partitioning scheme:

  1. 10GB partition empty -- will be installing Natty here
  2. 10GB partition containing Maverick
  3. 2GB swap partition
  4. 300GB encrypted /home partition

I've had few problems in the past with having two ubuntu installs on two separate partitions, giving /home it's own partition, but I'm a little concerned since I'm now using an encrypted /home partition. Install won't try to wipe my /home if I click " encrypt home directory," will it?

Jonathan
  • 7,450

3 Answers3

2

I've not done exactly what you're trying to do, and I'm not sure what will happen when you select the 'Encrypt my home folder' option, but I do have some advice when you come to performing the installation.

I keep my entire system on a single partition, and at the time I had an encrypted home directory. I reinstalled my system according to my answer to this question, and when I logged into my fresh system, I found I was unable to access my home directory. I later realised this was because when I was going through the installation process in Ubiquity, I specified either a different username, password or hostname (I can't remember which) and the encryption mechanism built into Ubuntu uses those three parameters as authorisation credentials for partition decryption when you log in, so you'll want to ensure you keep those three the same.

Community
  • 1
1

So I tried it, and it turns out everything works quite nicely. If your /home partition is already encrypted, it'll automatically select (and prevent you from deselecting) "encrypt my home folder." Then when you boot up everything works as expected.

Jonathan
  • 7,450
0

Hopefully it would prompt before erasing, but yes, erasing is the behaviour I'd expect.

djeikyb
  • 30,245
  • Not sure if it always applies, but using Manual partitioning, you can select whether a partition should be formatted or not. – Lekensteyn Mar 15 '11 at 16:51