[CLUE-Tech] Mounting FAT32 partition as /home

[Jim Ockers]

Hi Angelo,

> Well I decided to install Debian.  In the process, I had this Great Idea: 
> I would mount a fat32 partition under /home to allow it accessible by 
> Windows.

How about using UMSDOS filesystem maybe?

> It didn't work.  I thought for sure if I just made it umask=000 in fstab, 
> it would work fine, but for some reason X won't allow me to log in.  Does 
> anyone have any idea why it won't let me?  Is it because everything on 
> that partition is owned by root?
> 
> The root user, which has its home directory under /root instead of /home 
> is able to log in to X fine.  Are there any special reasons why the fat32 
> partition would have conflicts?  my fstab is basically vfat and 
> defaults,umask=000

I would suspect that the execute bit needs to be set on certain shell
scripts which X uses for your home directory.  If you set a umask that
doesn't make any files executable then the shell scripts might not run.

You could try making every file executable (with the appropriate
umask) and then see what happens.

-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: please see http://www.ockers.net/