current best practice: separate /home partition?

[oldfred]

I have to agree with deadflower that backup is probably more important.

I am a proponent of separating system from data, both Windows & Linux. That makes it bit easier to reinstall system, but does not negate importance of backups.

But for a very new user it is not critical. I used just Windows, Linux and a shared FAT32 partition for years.

But with Windows 7 they have made it difficult to create new partitions. Almost always Windows 7 will use all 4 primary partitions under MBR and get you into the issues of partitions.

Most Windows users do not even know what a partition is. Windows calls both physical drives and partitions as drives. So you have to get into what partitions are.

But now I have multiple installs and find separate data partitions more important and do not have separate partition for /home.

[DuckHook]

It is far more important to have a reliable back up system in place than to have partition dedicated directories.

Agreed. But OP has already looked after this:

...make sure that they set up their automated backups.

His real question is cost/benefit to him (as a support source) and his friends (end users) of separate /home

While convenient, having a separate /home partition in this day and age is unnecessary as hard drive capacity is quite large.

Don't entirely agree. Utility of separate /home is not to spread info over 2 drives. As noted by many posts, it is for ease of recovery, ease of upgrade, etc. It's necessity will be determined by OP's needs. Example: If he spends more time trying to recover from borked manual repartitioning attempts, then best to make use of automated install process into one partition and just live with the result. If he spends more time untangling upgrades, fighting with backups, reinstalling VMs, etc, then separate /home will save him tons of heartache.

[tartalo]

It is far more important to have a reliable back up system in place than to have partition dedicated directories.

While that is true, it's also true that ain't nobody got time for that, so having a partition based strategy for friends and family will save you time.

[debodas]

When installing my first distro, I only made a / partition. Later, I needed to reinstall it (long story why). Anyway, without a /home partition, I wiped all my docs, photos etc. I had a backup, but it was still a lesson learned. I would always recommend a separate / and /home partition, it is so much easier in the long run.

[DuckHook]

Exactly my own experience. I would guess that most long-time users would cite a similar learning-curve. But sometimes, hindsight can be distorting: would you say that you had to go through the learning-curve before being convinced that a separate /home was a good idea? In my case, I don't think any amount of warning from any guru no matter how experienced would have convinced me to do a complex partition when I was starting out. The fear of screwing up my system today just trumped any consideration of ease of use in the vague future.

[lykwydchykyn]

Exactly my own experience. I would guess that most long-time users would cite a similar learning-curve. But sometimes, hindsight can be distorting: would you say that you had to go through the learning-curve before being convinced that a separate /home was a good idea? In my case, I don't think any amount of warning from any guru no matter how experienced would have convinced me to do a complex partition when I was starting out. The fear of screwing up my system today just trumped any consideration of ease of use in the vague future.

When I was starting out, this was the default arrangment for the distro I was using. It's a shame the installer isn't making this an option. It's been a while since I used Ubiquity; is it really just a choice between one partition and custom partitioning now?

[debodas]

Exactly my own experience. I would guess that most long-time users would cite a similar learning-curve. But sometimes, hindsight can be distorting: would you say that you had to go through the learning-curve before being convinced that a separate /home was a good idea? In my case, I don't think any amount of warning from any guru no matter how experienced would have convinced me to do a complex partition when I was starting out. The fear of screwing up my system today just trumped any consideration of ease of use in the vague future.

My first linux distro, I just made a / partition, and didn't bother with a /home.

Took me all of one reinstall to realise that was a bad move. I think most people can learn how to make partitions, and it sure it better.