How (and Why) to Install Linux Mint with a Separate Home Partition

If you're installing Linux Mint—or any Linux distro—and you want more control over your system files and personal data, this guide is for you.

In this blog (and my YouTube video), I’ll walk you through how to install Linux Mint with a separate /home partition, step by step. I’ll also break down the advantages and disadvantages of doing this so you can decide if it’s right for you.

Table of Contents

• Why Bother with a Separate /home Partition?

  • What is /home in Linux?

• Pros and Cons of Having a Separate Home Partition

  • Advantages

  • Disadvantages

• Installing Linux Mint with Separate /home Partitio …

  • Step 1: Boot from Live USB

  • Step 2: Choose "Something Else" During Installatio …

  • Step 3: Create the Following Partitions

  • Step 4: Proceed with Installation

• Is It Worth It?

Why Bother with a Separate /home Partition?

Before jumping into installation steps, here’s what you should know:

What is /home in Linux?

In Linux, the /home directory holds your user data: downloads, documents, desktop settings, browser profiles, and custom app configs. Think of it as the “Users” folder in Windows.

Separating it into its own partition means you’re putting your personal files on a different "slice" of your drive than the system files, similar to separating drives in Windows. This opens up some flexibility.

Pros and Cons of Having a Separate Home Partition

Advantages

1. Safe System Reinstalls
   You can reinstall or upgrade Linux without wiping your personal files. Just make sure not to format /home during the reinstall, and all your files and settings will stay intact.

2. Cleaner System Maintenance
   It keeps system and personal data isolated. This is handy for backups or when troubleshooting issues—less chance of accidentally nuking your data.

3. Faster Disaster Recovery
   If something breaks in the/root , you can reinstall the OS and reconnect the /home partition to recover files from a backup.

4. Multi-Distro or Multi-User Friendly
   You can dual-boot or switch between distros more easily if they all point to the same /home, as long as you manage user permissions carefully. For example, you can save a file in Linux Mint and access the same file in Debian via dual-boot.

Disadvantages

1. Partition Planning Required
   You need to manually create partitions during installation. If you guess wrong and give /root too little space, you might run into system errors.

2. Harder to Resize Later
   Unlike one big partition, resizing partitions after install is more complex and risky (especially if you don’t have backups).

3. Can’t Always Be Reused Safely
   Different Linux versions may use different configuration files, and reusing an old /home partition can cause conflicts (e.g. desktop environments behaving oddly).

Installing Linux Mint with Separate /home Partition

Step 1: Boot from Live USB

• Create a bootable USB using Rufus, Balena Etcher, or whatever you prefer.

• Boot into the Linux Mint installer.

Step 2: Choose "Something Else" During Installation

• When asked about installation type, select "Something else" to manually create partitions.

Step 3: Create the Following Partitions

1. EFI System Partition (if using UEFI)

   • Size: 100-200 MB is more than enough but for safety, go with 500 MB

   • Filesystem: FAT32

   • Mount point: /boot/efi

2. Root Partition (/)

• Size: 20–30 GB minimum (I recommend 50 GB or more if you have space)

• Filesystem: ext4

• Mount point: /

3. Home Partition (/home)

• Size: The rest of your drive (or however much space you want for user data)

• Filesystem: ext4

• Mount point: /home

4. Swap Partition (optional; latest distro use Swap file instead of partition)

• For more information check out my blog, Everything You Need to Know About Swap Partition on Linux

• You can set 2 - 4 GB for your swap partition

• Type: swap area

Note: Fedora users may see Btrfs as the default instead of ext4, but the partition concept is the same.

Step 4: Proceed with Installation

• Double-check everything—especially that you’re formatting only what you intend.

• Continue the install as normal.

• If reinstalling Linux later, you can reuse the same /home partition—just don’t format it.

Is It Worth It?

If you like tinkering, reinstalling, or distro-hopping, yes—separating /home is totally worth it. It gives you flexibility and peace of mind.

If you're setting up a one-time system and plan to clone the whole drive for backup anyway, you might skip it. But even then, it's nice to have the safety net.

Feel free to share this guide or drop a comment if you have questions!