Ubuntu – How to create a separate data partition

You quoted the answer to your own question...

If you maintain /home as a separate partition, you can install new versions of a distribution or even different distributions altogether without wiping out any user settings.

A partition is just a way to separate the files in the hard drive, it doesn't need to be a place for an operating system. If your system partition and your home partition are separated, if you upgrade your system it'll only affect the system partition, leaving your data alone.

There are other uses for a different data partition such as encrypting it or a having a different filesystem than the operating system's one.

Note that Linux treats /home, /usr, /var... as folders, even if they are separate partitions (they are mounted at bootup). So having a separate /home partition won't affect you in any negative way, go ahead and do it.

If you intend to have a server someday, I'd advise to use a separate /var partition, and probably a separate /usr and /tmp too.

In order to achieve that.. you should edit the Nautilus source code and the nautilus.desktop file or using another file manager that allows this, such as nemo.

NOTE: In this example I'm running ubuntu 13.04 with nautilus (files) 3.6.3.
You can test this in a virtual machine to see if everything is OK.

1) Make sure you have enable the Source code repository

• Open the Ubuntu Software Center
• In the Menu Bar choose Edit -> Software Sources. Click to enable "Source code repository". Just in case I use the "Main Server" to Download.

Open a Terminal Window to update the repositories.

• sudo apt-get update

2) In the Terminal type the following to install the necessary packages.

• sudo apt-get install build-essential quilt

3) Install build dependencies.

• sudo apt-get build-dep nautilus

4) Create a folder to download the source code.

• mkdir ~/Downloads/src

• cd ~/Downloads/src

5) Download the source code & Export variables.

• apt-get source nautilus

• export QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches

• export EDITOR=gedit

6) Create the patch and edit the source code.

• cd nautilus-3.6.3/

• quilt new my_custom_places.patch

• quilt edit src/nautilus-places-sidebar.c

Custom Trash: To change the name of the Trash.You can change the strings in the lines 567 and 569.

eg: "Trash" to "Custom Trash" & "Open the trash" to "Open the Custom Trash"

Add Folder: In this example I will add the "Test" folder in my home directory /home/virtual/Test. (change the folder according to your needs)

After the line number 562 add the following:

/* add Test directory */
mount_uri = "file:///home/virtual/Test";
icon = g_themed_icon_new (NAUTILUS_ICON_FOLDER);
add_place (sidebar, PLACES_BUILT_IN,
       SECTION_COMPUTER,
       _("Test"), icon, mount_uri,
       NULL, NULL, NULL, 0,
       _("Open Test folder"));
g_object_unref (icon);

Remove Recent Files: To remove the Recent Files from the places... delete the lines from 525 to 534.

Save the changes.

7) Build the deb packages.

• quilt refresh
• fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage

8) Install the deb packages.

• cd ..

• sudo dpkg -i *deb

9) For system-wide..edit the nautilus.desktop file to add the folder eg:(/home/virtual/Test) in the quick list.

• sudo nano /usr/share/applications/nautilus.desktop

Change:

Actions=Window;

To:

Actions=Test;Window;

Add:

[Desktop Action Test]
Name=Test             
Exec=nautilus --new-window /home/virtual/Test
OnlyShowIn=Unity;

Before:

After:

10) Finally you can logout and Login to see the changes.

RESULT:

Hope this helps.