Linux operating system has a special directory, is the home directory, program configuration files, etc. are here. Simply put, after a software installation, your settings and so on are saved in the home directory, if the software is not (such as unloading, reloading system, etc.) but the home directory is not lost, as long as the software installed back, the various settings and other things all back. The APT Software management tool does not clean the home content by default when uninstalling. This is also a good place for the Linux kernel to design.
When we install the system, we choose whether the directories will be mounted to other partitions, including the home directory. One of the benefits of putting home alone is that when you reload the system, you can only format the system partition, not the home partition, so that the original software data can be preserved. But there are also shortcomings, that is, specialized in more than one partition, but also to consider the extent of the partition is how large and so on.
Share a way to create a directory under a non-system partition, and then link the home directory to this directory. This way, all the files under home are on this non-system partition, and there is no need to dedicate a partition to home. If you do not know the soft link, then go to understand it, similar to Windows under the shortcut.
Linux operating system use tips to completely separate programs and data