Multiboot partitioning to share data, not dot files

[postid <postid@att.net>]

I'll be installing Lenny on an IBM R-40 laptop. I want to have 
WinXP, Lenny (with KDE, bells and whistles) and another 
Lenny(with Fluxbox, pared down to just what I need, and used for 
some experimenting). I want the two Lennys to share the files in 
the data partition.

While all the normal data files will be in the data (or 
"documents") partition, the /home directories will exist on their 
own partitions just to keep the dot files there. This way, I 
think that the two Lennys can share data, but not have problems 
with conflicting configuration files. It will also ease data backups.

Here are two examples with the proposed setup. The difference is 
that the first puts the data file as a primary, while the other 
puts the / partitions as primary.

hda1 -- WinXP -- primary --------6 GB
hda2 -- /data -- primary ------- 8 GB
hda3 -- swap -- primary -------- 1 GB
hda4 -- extended -- extended -- 20 GB
 hda5 -- /home 1 -- logical ---- 1 GB
 hda6 -- /home 2 -- logical ---- 1 GB
 hda7 -- / Lenny 1 -- logical - 10 GB
 hda8 -- / Lenny 2 -- logical -- 8 GB

hda1 -- WinXP -- primary -------6 GB
hda2 -- / Lenny 1 -- primary - 10 GB
hda3 -- / Lenny 2 -- primary -- 8 GB
hda4 -- extended -- extended - 11 GB
  hda5 -- /home 1 -- logical -- 1 GB
  hda6 -- /home 2 -- logical -- 1 GB
  hda7 -- /data -- logical ---- 8 GB
  hda8 -- swap -- logical ----- 1 GB

Does this make sense or is there a better way?