Linux 101 stuff. Questions are encouraged, noobs are welcome! @lemmy.world gpstarman @lemmy.today 4 mo. ago

Mounting Folders VS Symlinks?

I have a NTFS drive for Storage, which is shared between WIn 11.

I want to change the location of (or replace) ~/Downloads, ~/Music, etc..,.

Note that the link to made is between NTFS and EXT4.

I found two ways while searching.

   1.Creating **Symlinks** in `~` with target pointed to folders in NTFS drive.

   2. **Mounting** the NTFS folders **directly** to`~/Downloads`, `~/Music`, etc..,.

Which one should I do? Which one is more beneficial?

Also how to mount folders to other folders (option 2) ? (I would really appreciate a GUI way)

3 comments

mounting folders to other folders is called a bind mount (because of the parameter with the same name).

the differences are:

the bind mount will block the umount of the NTFS drive until all binds are removed and requires the NTFS drive to be mounted for it to work. You may want to utilise the "pass" field in fstab to make it work. it is therefore slightly harder to persist.

the symlinks will just lead to no or the wrong destinations when the NTFS isn't present. while the mount points of the bind mount will be normal folders if it isn't present for some reason. when this happens, files created in there will be hidden under the bind, once it's restored.
- the bind mount will block the umount of the NTFS drive until all binds are removed and requires the NTFS drive to be mounted for it to work. You may want to utilise the "pass" field in fstab to make it work. it is therefore slightly harder to persist.
  
  Can you please explain more.
Also how to mount folders to other folders (option 2) ? (I would really appreciate a GUI way)

The CLI way syntax : ln -s source target

For example : ln -s /media/username/NTFS-folder-Downloads ~/Downloads/NTFS-folder-Downloads (Make sure to omit a trailing / if you are using command line auto suggestion completion).

If you want an answer from other readers about the GUI way : it would useful which file manager (Nautilus, Dolphin, Nemo, Caja etc.) you are using.
- Thank You.
  
  Actually I'm asking about mounting, not creating Symlinks.
  
  I'm using Nemo.