Ubuntu
firefox package

install applications outside home directory

Asked by Sam Quintanar

I have limited space in my Home directory (11.7 GB) because my computer is set up to Dual-boot Vista and Ubuntu 10.04;
therefore it would be nice to install Ubuntu applications on a data partition or on an external hard drive outside my Home DIrectory.
Am I able to install applications outside my home directory? If so, how?

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Marc Stewart
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Marc Stewart (marc.stewart) said : 		#1

Applications aren't normally installed in your home directory anyway—they're put in /usr—although configuration data specific to you is placed there.

But to answer your question, you can move files (including applications) onto another drive, and then create links to them from their original location. If you do this with an external drive, you'll have to be careful about unmounting.

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Sam Quintanar (robosq) said : 		#2

How must I be careful about unmounting? What must I do to ensure safety?

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Sam Quintanar (robosq) said : 		#3

What I'm basically trying to do is preserve my 11.7 GB space allocated to my Ubuntu partition on the C drive of my Dual-boot setup. I just thought avoiding placing too many apps in the Ubuntu partition would be good.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#4

You can use bleachbit to remove temporary fluff (avoid steps stating they will take a long time and watch the browser settings o it will delete your settings).You can also remove old kernels to get ~120Mb per kernel. You can also remove open office (~120Mb) and install abiword (~12Mb) if you only use writer. You can also remove ubuntu-docs to get 250Mb back.

You can also review the installed stuff in ubuntu and remove what you do not use. A default ubuntu install is massively bloated with crap that a lot of users will not use and can easily be trimmed down.

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Sam Quintanar (robosq) said : 		#5

Referring to the answer below: How must I be careful about unmounting? What must I do to ensure safety?

>I have limited space in my Home directory (11.7 GB) because my computer is set up to Dual-boot >Vista and Ubuntu 10.04;
>therefore it would be nice to install Ubuntu applications on a data partition or on an external hard >drive outside my Home DIrectory.
>Am I able to install applications outside my home directory? If so, how?
----------------------------------
>Applications aren't normally installed in your home directory anyway—they're put in
>/usr—although configuration data specific to you is placed there.

>But to answer your question, you can move files (including applications) onto another drive, and >then create links to them from their original location. If you do this with an external drive, you'll >have to be careful about unmounting.

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Best Marc Stewart (marc.stewart) said : 		#6

If you unmount the external drive, then you can't access anything on it. If a running program needs access to something on that drive, it suddenly being disconnected is going to cause a problem, which is why you should be careful about unmounting. "To ensure safety", don't unmount the drive (at least not unless you're positive nothing's going to need access to anything you've moved onto it).

This is partly why it's usually only user data (documents, pictures, etc.), rather than applications, that get moved to external drives if space is an issue. (It also makes it easier to share access to those files with Windows in a dual-boot configuration.)

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#7

Yuo dont mount drives, you mount partitions

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Sam Quintanar (robosq) said : 		#8

Thanks Marc Stewart, that solved my question.