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Multiple Linux distros can be installed on the same machine. The format of executables should be the same for every one of them. So I want to use multiple distros on a single machine and have access to some applications like Skype, Chrome or Spotify from all. I don't want to waste time and disk space to install them on distros separately. I want to use only modern distros, like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Solus, Manjaro, etc.

man hier expresses /usr/local as a folder is where programs which are local to the site typically go. I can make a separate partition with the contents of /usr/local and mount it on every distro. Please tell me if this is the appropriate folder.

After mounting the appropriate folder:

  • what is required for executables to be shared among distros (permissions, UID, GID)?
  • will it be possible to install a piece of software on one distro and run it on another?
  • will upgrade of a package on one distro be visible on the other distros?
  • will removal of the package be visible on other distros?
  • should I mount more folders, like /home, /usr/share/games, /usr/share/locale, /usr/bin, /lib, /opt or /var?
  • how about flatpak and Appimages?
banan3'14
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3 Answers3

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As far as I can understand you want to have a multi-boot system where you can boot a different Linux distros at a time, but keeping the same binaries in a shared partition.

What you want to do isn't feasible, and if you were trying to do it, you would be spending 10x more time compared to managing each distro separately. You're opening a gigantic can of worms here.

will it be possible to install a piece of software on one distro and run it on another?

In general, no. Linux executables are compiled differently for each distro. They depend on specific versions of specific installed libraries. You might be able to run on all distros a generic software binary that is not distro-specific, but even a program that doesn't use external libraries and relies on the kernel only would depend on the kernel version, which is very different from distro to distro (e.g. Fedora uses a kernel version which is much more advanced than RHEL's or Ubuntu). Not to mention that the same kernel version might be build with different config options depending on the distro.

what is required for executables to be shared among distros (permissions, UID, GID)?

This is too broad a question. The same package in two different distros might e.g need to run under different users. So, requirements are different depending on the software and on the distro.

will upgrade of a package on one distro be visible on the other distros?
will removal of the package be visible on other distros?

No, each distro has its own Package Manager and package format, and are not compatible with each other (see also this question: Why isn't there a truly unified package manager for Linux?). Trying to mix them up will make a mess. And compiling each software from source to avoid dealing with Package Managers means opening another can of worms.

Concerning your questions about mountpoints and sharing partitions, note that's tricky enough just sharing the /home partition between different distros, as seen in this question: Different linux distros sharing the same /home folder?

dr_
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No, only /usr/local and possibly /opt are safe to share.

not /home because dotfiles may not be compatible across distros. (but you could mount /home elsewhere to make the files available)

not /usr/share becuase the files there are architecture agnositic, but not version agnostic.

all other directories are also under the management of your distro, so sharing them will cause collisions.

Jasen
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  • FWIW, /home is usually safe to share. Very rarely do config files have sufficiently different formats between distros that it's an issue. THe only caveat is that config on one distro will propagate to all of them. – Austin Hemmelgarn May 08 '18 at 19:39
  • i've see it with things like firefox, I'd share the user subdirectories off home, but not the dotfiles – Jasen May 08 '18 at 22:00
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    OK, never tried it with Firefox. In theory, you might be fine if you use different firefox profiles for each distro though, as that would separate out all the stuff that's likely to conflict. – Austin Hemmelgarn May 09 '18 at 18:40
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AppImages are safe to share between different distributions since they do not change the files in the system. In fact, this is one of the main points of the AppImage format - you download an application once, and then can run it on any of your distributions without having to re-download the same application.

You can store AppImages on any partition you want, including network shares.

probono
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