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Changing Default Dir for Virtual Drives

1 year After...

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SirLouen Jeudi 13 Décembre 2012 à 12:28
SirLouenAnonymous

I've been reading several topics about the thing of changing default dir for VDrives is a bad idea (specially by using symlinks or mounting systems). 

I've also read that there was a team working on this feature, but I don't know if after + 1 year if it has been already released. I've been looking in the options and still cannot see this possibility.

Anyway, have anyone discovered how to do this?

I have my main system installed in an SSD and my home in a HDD, so I would like to run the playonlinux apps in the SSD without moving the entire /home dir to the SSD. Any ideas?
petch Jeudi 13 Décembre 2012 à 13:34
petch

Where is it written it's a bad idea?
About the "team" working on it, to my knowledge no work has been started in that direction.
SirLouen Vendredi 14 Décembre 2012 à 13:57
SirLouenAnonymous

So which method do you find is the best for doing this task?

I've find that a plugin called POL Helper can do this, but still not sure is a good method neither

BTW I found this future improvements here for example:
But did never occurr

Edité par SirLouen

petch Vendredi 14 Décembre 2012 à 15:45
petch

Symlinking or mounting (including with --bind, under Linux) either ~/.PlayOnLinux ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix should work just fine.
Symlinking or mounting each virtual drive directory separately (~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/SomeDirectory) is more problematic, because
- (unless you go read the installation script source,) you don't know the name of the virtual drive that will be created, so you can only move it around after the installation
- removal won't be fully automatic in either case

But again, if what you want is to move all virtual drives, or all PlayOnLinux state for that matter, on a different disk, symlinks or mounts will do exactly what you want.

Edité par petch

SirLouen Vendredi 14 Décembre 2012 à 16:54
SirLouenAnonymous

Ok, I've tried to move the whole .PlayOnLinux dir to my root dir and created a SymLink on my /home dir. After some fixes on file permissions I've managed to make my apps work on the new location.

I thought I would be a painful process, but seem to be fairly easy.

Thanks for the info. I expect in a future is designed a built-in method to move it despite It may cause major issues as you mention, for example, for a proper full removal process.
petch Vendredi 14 Décembre 2012 à 17:54
petch

Yes, but on the other hand the Unix philosophy is that paths should match a semantic (a "meaning") not be influenced by physical location, so that disks can be added and removed without modifying the paths, hence without reconfiguring softwares; Ideally, there should be minimal to no support in each and every software to have state in configurable locations.
In fact, using symlinks or mounts is the Unix way. Filesystems that have embedded multidevices and subvolumes support like Btrfs provide an even seamless way of separating paths from physical location.

Since you're talking of problems with file rights, I should have mentioned that:
- It is very important that the filesystem(s) used to store virtual drives are Posix compliant (support symlinks, case sensitivity, etc.) for Wine to work correctly. Most notably, FAT and NTFS filesystems should be avoided.
- use tools that retain rights and special files to move files around. If you're unsure the tool you use does, cp -a or tar should do.
mamsa Lundi 11 Novembre 2013 à 13:34
mamsaAnonymous

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving

That is what I ended doing, moving the whole /home directory. It was small anyway (the partition) so would have run out of space regardless. Took maybe 15 mins (Yes, I'm a noob). This is for Ubuntu. I'm running Ubuntu 13.10 desktop version.
Bladeforce Mercredi 13 Novembre 2013 à 0:36
BladeforceAnonymous

I just used a symbolic link

Moved my wineprefix folder to the larger external drive then created a sym link

ln -s /media/Stuff/wineprefix ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix

been working fine this way for a year now

Edité par Bladeforce

drakefin Samedi 1 Mars 2014 à 16:23
drakefinAnonymous

Greetings lovely PoL community!

Sorry for getting out this rather old post from its virtual grave, but I am in need of some thoughts regarding a symlink problem.

I have read quite a lot trough the PoL forums, because I want to change my wineprefix directory to another hdd aswell.

I am currently working with Kubuntu 13.10 and PoL Version 4.2.2

Now back to my question: I did make a symlink and according to my ln -l output it correctly refers to the desired destination:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 49 Mär 1 16:04 wineprefix -> /media/drakefin/Linux\ Games/PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/

access rights on the default /.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix folder
drwxr-xr-x 2 drakefin drakefin 4096 Mär 1 16:04 wineprefix

access rights on the symlinked folder
drwxr-xr-x 2 drakefin drakefin 4096 Mär 1 16:04 wineprefix

I made the symlink with PoL closed, and started it up right again after I was done. Nevertheless everytime I create a new virtual drive it puts its contents into the default ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix folder, instead of the symlinked one.

Does anyone have a clue what I am doing wrong? I want to add that I sadly am not yet too firm with Linux, but giving my best. So don't exclude noob errors while I made the symlink. I created the symlink with the ln -s command.

Thank You all very much in advance!!
//drakefin



Edité par drakefin

petch Samedi 1 Mars 2014 à 18:22
petch

If you still have a ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix folder, you're doing something wrong, because it should be replaced by the symlink.
petch Samedi 1 Mars 2014 à 18:24
petch

drakefin Dimanche 2 Mars 2014 à 14:36
drakefinAnonymous

If you still have a ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix folder, you're doing something wrong, because it should be replaced by the symlink.

Quote from petch

Oh my gods ... thats a bit embarassing now .... *cough*

Now I have a shiny blue folder with an arrow pointing exactly where its supposed to point xD

Big shiny thank You from a new noobie happy Linux user <3

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