Ubuntu – How to integrate the Windows filesystem with Ubuntu

fileswindowsxdg

I recently got a new Windows computer and would like to dual boot with Ubuntu. I don't really want to have 2 separate file systems (with mounting) but would like to integrate the two, if it is possible. Like for example I would like my /home/name/Pictures to have the same content as the Pictures folder in My Documents in windows, /home/name/Downloads to be the same as the Downloads folder in windows, Music to be the same as the window's Music folder, and even Desktop if possible. I understand some folders would have to be different, like AppData in windows would not be able to work properly so some duplicates might be necessary.

Is this at all possible? I hate how having Ubuntu feels like having a new computer all together and would like some unity (no pun intended).

Thanks.

Best Answer

Prerequisites

You have to have the Windows partition mounted in Ubuntu to make the following work .

Redirecting special folders

An equivalent of special folders (My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc) known from Windows folders was defined by the freedesktop.org project. The correspondig configuration file ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs is managed by the xdg-user-dirs-update command.

You could, for example, change the download directory by executing the following command in the terminal:

xdg-user-dirs-update --set DOWNLOAD /mnt/<WINDOWS_PARTITION>/users/<YOU>/Downloads

Another way to achieve the same is to manually replace $HOME/Downloads by /mnt/<WINDOWS_PARTITION>/users/<YOU>/Downloads in the configuration file (e.g. in gedit or nano).

To have the changes take effect run xdg-user-dirs-gtk-update afterwards and additionally xdg-user-dirs-update if you have edited the configuration file by hand.

Redirecting regular folders

You can also replace folders on your Ubuntu home folder with symbolic links to the folders on your Windows partition e.g.:

ln -s /mnt/<WINDOWS_PARTITION>/users/<YOU>/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/<YOUR_PROFILE.default> ~/.mozilla/firefox/<YOUR_PROFILE.default>

That is a very simple solution and it does not work for everything, it might cause issues in some cases. However some people share settings for Firefox and Thunderbird that way.

Related Question