OpenSuSE and RHEL4 Dual Boot with the same network user

[molfer]

Been using OpenSuSE 10.1 on my work PC, and have been very happy with it. The thing is that one of the applications I need to run on it (the WindRiver Workbench environment) is officially supported only on Enterprise distributions like Red Hat or Enterprise SuSE. It was unofficially tested with free distributions as well (namely Fedora & OpenSuSE), and I have been running it successfully on my OpenSuSE machine, but I won't get any support when running it on OpenSuSE.
Now I would upgrade to Enterprise SuSE, but my company has only RedHat EL4 which I really hate. Not that I need any support from our IT people (managed pretty good without their help), but the support for the application can be an issue.
Before giving up, I thought of the following idea: As both my user and home directory are on the network, and the work applications are installed in the home directory, I thought I might be able to install RHELL4 on my machine as well, and have it dual boot SuSE & RHEL4. My network user and home directory stay the same, as well as the application, and I can keep using OpenSuSE except for the cases I will need support for the application.
I know I may be doing some extra work (installing drivers twice etc.), but I'm ready to pay the price. Question is whether the outcomes of such a thing are bearable, or I'm entering myself into some deep trouble??
Note that I don't use the station for net surfing, mail, office etc. - I have another Windows PC for this stuff.

[Devasis]

I think that you will run into problems sharing your home directory with different distro simply because of the configuration files stored there. If there are hardcoded paths in some apps dotfile in your home directory, and that shared library is in a different location on the other distro, There could be a problem...

[molfer]

Thanks Dev!
Yeah I guessed these were the problems to expect. Would cloning these directories with different names (say .kde-suse and .kde-rhel), and setting up symbolic links (.kde here) at the very early login stage solve these problems? If so - where is the best place to put this config? I guess this is stupid! but can this be done?

[Devasis]

You will be discouraged at this! This isn't possible as this would be considered a a HACK and you'r enterprise will screw you if they found it out! Anyways don't mess up your setup! by dual booting two different Linux Distro!