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I'm dual booting Ubuntu and Elementary OS. Is there a way I can auth myself as a Elemantary OS user and access my files under Ubuntu home folder and vice-versa?

image of the situation

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  • From Ubuntu you should be able to access the Elementary partition using Nautilus (Files). Locate the partition in the left panel of Nautilus and find your home folder there. I am assuming you don't have your home folder encrypted.
    – user68186
    May 29, 2015 at 11:01
  • The simple answer is yes, and we can go into details if you choose to clarify the question. May 29, 2015 at 11:14
  • @Maythux The OP is dual booting the systems in question, i.e. the systems won't be running at the same time and therefore network solutions won't work.
    – s3lph
    May 29, 2015 at 11:19
  • From your screenshot it appears, that you have your Ubuntu home directory encrypted with ecryptfs, so you should investigate how to deal with that. Alas, a question how to access files of an Ubuntu installation with Elementary OS is off topic here, but the other way around would be fine. I recommend, that you describe your issue from that point of view (and there's a good chance, that it's very similar in Elementary OS), in which case I'll retract my close vote or vote for re-opening (ping me in the comments to get my attention). Jun 5, 2015 at 9:14

1 Answer 1

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You wont need to authenticate yourself as an Elementary OS user from Ubuntu or as an Ubuntu user from Elementary OS. You just have to have the same UID on both systems. Then, mounting the file system under either OS will allow you to have regular user access.

If you want the files to always be accessible, create an /etc/fstab entry for each of the operating systems from within the each other operating system. Here's an overly long explanation of how to do that: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

Also, you would need to create a new directory under each OS where the home directory can be mounted for the other.

If the systems have different user IDs, you could add a new user account to each operating system. Either redundantly set your passwords for each system manually, or create a new user account on each system and copy the password line from /etc/shadow of one system into /etc/shadow of the other. But be extremely careful that you only copy the one line. Screw this file up and you'll have to boot up in recovery mode to fix your passwords.

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