What's the best way to share documents across multiple distributions?

[Syrinx]

I'm currently using Ubuntu 10.04.

I have my home directory on its own 1TB disk.

I thought this would make it easy to install multiple Linux distros and still access my docs. (music, pictures, movies, etc.) Now, I'm reading that it's not really good to do that.

Planning to install Ubuntu 11.10, and then build Linux From Scratch from there.

I want to be able to access my docs from multiple Linux distros.

Currently have Windows XP installed, but realized I haven't booted Windows for years, and really don't need it anymore.

So I'm going to nuke Windows.

What is the best way to set up a Unix system, so that I can access my docs from any one of them.

Ubuntu and LFS are my first two planned set-ups. But I'll probably want to try other distros of Linux, and maybe even some BSD variants.

Anyone have advice, or even links to websites that lay it all out?

Thank you.

[Syrinx]

1. after thinking about it a bit...

I guess the thing to do is keep my big disk as it is, only instead of mounting it under ~, mount it under ~/doc. Seems fairly obvious now. Sorry for what in retrospect was a pretty dumb question, I guess.

Anyone care to share your experiences with multi-booting, and how you partition your disks?

I'm thinking of making a separate ones for /boot and for swap-space, then just giving each distro one of its own at about 10 to 20 gigs each. Maybe a shared /tmp partition. I'm not sure about that one. I don't really understand why people make separate partitions for /usr and /opt.

[pokerfan]

2. there are no dumb questions

though I was having difficulty understanding what you were asking for. As far as partitioning goes, how ever you wish to do it. One thing I like to do recommend is a separate partition (perhaps even a separate drive) for the home directory: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-create-a-separate-home-partition-in-ubuntu.html

[Syrinx]

3. that's basically what I've done

I nuked Windows XP, which I never, ever used. And I've got a one tb drive that has my docs.

But I've read that it's not good to make that a home directory, because different apps in different distributions may use different formats for configuration files and such. So I guess I'll mount that as ~/doc, or something like that, instead of as home itself.

I have an old 80-gig drive that's still humming along, and I made a 25-gig partition on it, and installed Ubuntu 11.10 on it. I'll probably end up shrinking that partition with GParted. When I started out, I didn't really know how big to make it.

I used "Linux From Scratch" for years, until I finally got annoyed with the agonies of keeping it up to date -- Dependency Hell.

But it seems lately that the big distros are getting too cute by half, and getting even more cumbersome and complicated that Windows itself.

So I think I'm going to give LFS another whirl, with Oscar the Ocelot as my jumping-off point.