Linux: move "home/user" directory back to the same "root" partition

What’s my target?

I’ve installed, as it should always be, a Linux distribution in two separate partitions.

In particular: the root directory in /dev/sdb2 partition and the home/user directory in /dev/sdb3 one.

After some time, I wanted to return the home/user directory to the same root partition.

Why I need it? I’d like to dedicate every partition to different Linux distributions.

What I’ve read before writing this article?

In the net I found many tutorials about moving the home/user directory to other partition, but not so many on the opposite operation.

Here are some references:

• Move the home directory back to a single partition
• Re: Partioning advice dualboot LM18.3 and 19

I’ve resolved this little problem with a personal trick, perhaps not appreciated by Linux purists, but very simple and quick and successful.

Here’s my not elegant but working trick

I created a bootable stick with a portable system (specifically Peppermint on USB) and booted the computer from the external drive.

I used the automatic mounting of the partitions sdb2 and sb3 in graphical mode (just clicking on the relevant folders in the file manager).

Then I copied the folder home/franco from the sdb3 partition, opened the folder home on the sdb2 partition as root (explicit option in the file manager) and simply pasted the copied material.

As final steps, I booted into the working operating system in maintenance mode, I commented out the line in fstab that contained the reference for the previous home/franco to sdb3, assigned to files, folder and subfolders the property to me with the following command: chown -R franco:franco franco and restarted the system.

NOW IT WORKS AS I NEED!

Thank you for your attention.

Originally posted on Medium