Symbolic Link in Linux and Windows

Dual Booting Windows and Linux: Sharing AI Models

I’ve been using both Windows and Linux for a long time, with a dual boot system that includes Windows 10 and Ubuntu 22.04. I use ComfyUI to generate AI images for my blog posts. Each AI model used by ComfyUI contains around 6 GB of data. To avoid having multiple copies of the same model in both operating systems, I’ve decided to create a shared partition and use symbolic links to point to the model in both OS.

Creating Symbolic Links

In Linux

In Linux, you can create symbolic links using the ln -s command. The syntax is as follows:

ln -s [target] [link]

For example, to link the model from a shared partition to the ComfyUI directory, you would use:

ln -s /mnt/shared/model /home/vanilas/ComfyUI/model

In Windows

In Windows, you can create symbolic links using the mklink command. The syntax is as follows:

mklink /D [link] [target]

For example, to link the model from a shared partition to the ComfyUI directory, you would use:

mklink /D C:\Users\Vanilas\ComfyUI\model D:\shared\model

By using this method, you can use the same model in both operating systems without having to store multiple copies.