Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On Sat, 2010-09-18 at 02:00 +0100, Liam Proven wrote: Get them onto the LTS release *now* and then you can safely leave 'em there 'til 2012. *Don't* put them onto 9.10, it's already obsolescent. Me, personally, I'd say wipe reload. It's easier than doing 9.04 - 9.10 followed by 9.10 - 10.04. Certainly is. I even vaguely remember certain issues that arose trying to upgrade unsupported releases, so a clean install is much easier. Just move /home into a separate filesystem, if it isn't already, make a note of any apps and config you need, then reformat / and install 10.04 into it. Let the install procedure pick up the existing /home/$username folder - it should sort things out for you. If possible, avoid replacing it later; have it there, /in situ/, first. To clarify: other than the scheme of regular backups I'm sure you keep all your important files backed up with (which you should definitely have in place), you need not worry about moving /home into a separate filesystem as such. As long as you have backups of all important files, putting a 10.04 disk in, and using the option to use an existing home is sufficient. To do this, run through the install until you get to the partitioning stage. At this point, choose Advanced partitioning. Select the option to use your whole main partition as / and make sure the Format checkbox is UNTICKED (v. important). Repeating for emphasis, DO NOT FORMAT THE DISK, but mark it to be used as the root filesystem /. You should already have a swap partition, and that should be marked to be used by default. I'm typing this guide from memory, so it's probably a good idea to wait for someone who has done a 10.04 install more recently to confirm this. Hope this helps, Josh -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On Saturday 18 Sep 2010 02:00:37 Liam Proven wrote: Get them onto the LTS release *now* and then you can safely leave 'em there 'til 2012. *Don't* put them onto 9.10, it's already obsolescent. Me, personally, I'd say wipe reload. It's easier than doing 9.04 - 9.10 followed by 9.10 - 10.04. I concur. I do this kind of reinstall all the time (we use Ubuntu on the server and desktop at my company). Just make a backup of /home and reinstall. Take the opportunity to move to ext4 while you are it; it's noticeably faster for many things. Using an old copy of your home directory will be fine as long as files are owned by the same userid after reinstall. Very little in Gnome, at least, goes wrong with upgrades. KDE apps between 9.04 and 10.04 may be a little more fussy, but if so just delete that app's config and data: rm -rf ~/.kde/share/apps/digikam rm ~/.kde/share/config/digikam* Regards, Tyler -- Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. -- The Robustness Principle, or Postel's Law, from RFC 793 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18 September 2010 10:18, Tyler J. Wagner ty...@tolaris.com wrote: Using an old copy of your home directory will be fine as long as files are owned by the same userid after reinstall. Very little in Gnome, at least, goes wrong with upgrades. KDE apps between 9.04 and 10.04 may be a little more fussy, but if so just delete that app's config and data: Another handy trick after copying /home/user to the new install is to do $ sudo chown -R user:user /home/user If /home/user exists during the install process, and you create user during the process, I think this is done automatically. chown is useful, however if restoring a plain backup or duplicating between two machines (I used to have two laptops with the same profile; a very useful backup system if one breaks). Jonathon -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18/09/10 11:27, Jonathon Fernyhough wrote: Another handy trick after copying /home/user to the new install is to do $ sudo chown -R user:user /home/user Just a hint. sudo chown -R user: /home/user will do the same thing. You do not need to add the group name after the colon. man chown: Group is unchanged if missing, but changed to login group if implied by a `:' following a symbolic OWNER Al -- The Open Learning Centre http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18 September 2010 11:38, Alan Lord (News) alansli...@gmail.com wrote: On 18/09/10 11:27, Jonathon Fernyhough wrote: Another handy trick after copying /home/user to the new install is to do $ sudo chown -R user:user /home/user Just a hint. sudo chown -R user: /home/user will do the same thing. You do not need to add the group name after the colon. Ah, yes. I did think of putting that in but thought the colon might get lost! Jonathon -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On Sat, 2010-09-18 at 02:00 +0100, Liam Proven wrote: Get them onto the LTS release *now* and then you can safely leave 'em there 'til 2012. *Don't* put them onto 9.10, it's already obsolescent. On the other hand 9.10 on my laptop is rock solid while LTS on my desktop is flaky with random freezes. This is widespread problem as shown below. (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/585765) I would favour using the most stable version for their particular hardware rather than automatically going for the latest and the greatest and risk ending up with dissatisfied users. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18/09/10 02:00, Liam Proven wrote: On 17 September 2010 21:11, alan caecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: I have a friend with Ubuntu 9.04 and I will do a version upgrade for them soon. One option is to version upgrade online to 9.10 and then, at another convenient future date, version upgrade to 10.04 LTS, which they will stay with for a longer time. Another option is to do a clean reinstall of Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS now, and then re-configure to match the user's apps and data. One suggestion I have received is, that after a clean reinstall of 10.04.1, I could then replace the clean /home/username directory with the copy of the directory from the user's 9.04 which I would have created earlier in careful backups. Thinking of this last option, I find a number of questions come to mind. What is the effect of brutally just replacing /home/username from an earlier version, possibly two or so versions old? The user has one app for example, Digikam (in Ubuntu) which they regularly use, and this I guess uses a number of kde libraries whatever. I cannot help wondering what sort of clean up (or chaos) I might be faced with, perhaps out of my depth too, by following this latter approach. I would welcome comments here. Get them onto the LTS release *now* and then you can safely leave 'em there 'til 2012. *Don't* put them onto 9.10, it's already obsolescent. Me, personally, I'd say wipe reload. It's easier than doing 9.04 - 9.10 followed by 9.10 - 10.04. I do not understand the following very well, sorry. I have lots of 'new install' experiences but have never been adventurous at this stage Just move /home into a separate filesystem, if it isn't already, make a note of any apps and config you need, then reformat / and install 10.04 into it. Let the install procedure pick up the existing /home/$username folder - it should sort things out for you. If possible, avoid replacing it later; have it there, /in situ/, first. ' move /home into a separate filesystem' copy and paste ok? Is this 'separate filesystem' typically a separate independent partition such as a backup disk or backup partition? Or is the 'separate filesystem intended maybe to be the target partition for the new install though? Not clear at all about this. Or would I be using the Install Partitioning option 'manual' where I nominate the directories and check off which should or should not be formatted? tia -- alan cocks Ubuntu user -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18/09/10 14:23, alan c wrote: snip / I do not understand the following very well, sorry. I have lots of 'new install' experiences but have never been adventurous at this stage I think your questions are rather good ones Alan. Perhaps either there is already, or we (the ones who *get* this stuff) need to put together, a page with a couple of proven methods of backing-up and restoring a user's home directory across new and/or upgraded Ubuntu installations. Just move /home into a separate filesystem, if it isn't already, make a note of any apps and config you need, then reformat / and install 10.04 into it. Let the install procedure pick up the existing /home/$username folder - it should sort things out for you. If possible, avoid replacing it later; have it there, /in situ/, first. ' move /home into a separate filesystem' copy and paste ok? Is this 'separate filesystem' typically a separate independent partition such as a backup disk or backup partition? Or is the 'separate filesystem intended maybe to be the target partition for the new install though? Not clear at all about this. *If* I was to copy my home dir, I would do one of two things: either cp -a (copy with archiving etc. man cp for the options) or: tar it into a tarball. IMHO *moving a user's home dir is fraught with issues. The OP didn't mention that you don't want to do this whilst being logged (as the same user) in for example ;-) Or would I be using the Install Partitioning option 'manual' where I nominate the directories and check off which should or should not be formatted? All good questions and I think we should provide you a decent answer that is a foolproof as can be. Wiki? Al -- The Open Learning Centre http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Alan Lord (News) alansli...@gmail.com wrote: All good questions and I think we should provide you a decent answer that is a foolproof as can be. Wiki? Definitely a topic worth a wiki page. As you say Alan, these are all good questions that don't have obvious answers to those that 'don't get it', and none of them are uncommon. In fact they are all reasonable questions that anyone about to undertake an upgrade probably should be asking, and finding out what will happen before starting. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18 September 2010 16:40, Will Bickerstaff will.bickerst...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Alan Lord (News) alansli...@gmail.com wrote: All good questions and I think we should provide you a decent answer that is a foolproof as can be. Wiki? Definitely a topic worth a wiki page. As you say Alan, these are all good questions that don't have obvious answers to those that 'don't get it', and none of them are uncommon. In fact they are all reasonable questions that anyone about to undertake an upgrade probably should be asking, and finding out what will happen before starting. -- Well I have done two upgrades from 8.04 LTS to 10.04 LTS. One was a straight upgrade through the update manager which worked flawlessly. The second was where the home directory was on a separate partition, and the system partition was not large enough to house the temporary file structure during upgrade, so I did a clean install of 10.04LTS over 8.04LTS which formatted the system partition and preserved the home directory which did leave a couple of problems. The first was the top right hand corner of the top panel was totally missing the network icon (although connectivity was working perfectly through ethernet cable, the gwibber icon was missing (maybe a good thing going by recent posts!) and there was no restart/shutdown icon. Add to panel sorted out that issue. The second problem was Firefox was reporting flash not installed, even though it was. This was a more taxing issue. After scratching my head a few times and trying a few things, I created a new account on the machine, and flash worked perfectly with that account. So I had to back up bookmarks, delete ~/.firefox, restore bookmarks, then all was well. A complaint was made shortly after that history and cookies had disappeared for good. I doubt if anything other than the default install and Gimp is on this machine, so someone doing a similar upgrade with a host of other applications, including some KDE apps like I have, may hit other additional problems upgrading by formatting. Having used Ubuntu since 6.06LTS and upgraded every six months through every distribution by the standard method, I don't think I have hit any issues to report. I think a wiki could be very useful, but there are bound to be different issues formatting upgrading between different versions. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On Saturday 18 Sep 2010 11:38:18 Alan Lord (News) wrote: Just a hint. sudo chown -R user: /home/user will do the same thing. You do not need to add the group name after the colon. Dude! If I had known that fifteen years ago, I'd have done ... well, a little less typing over the years. Very handy. Thanks! Tyler -- The paradox of dictating democracy, of enforcing freedom, of extorting emancipation. -- Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (2004) -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 18/09/10 15:11, Alan Lord (News) wrote: On 18/09/10 14:23, alan c wrote: snip / I do not understand the following very well, sorry. I have lots of 'new install' experiences but have never been adventurous at this stage I think your questions are rather good ones Alan. Perhaps either there is already, or we (the ones who *get* this stuff) need to put together, a page with a couple of proven methods of backing-up and restoring a user's home directory across new and/or upgraded Ubuntu installations. Just move /home into a separate filesystem, if it isn't already, make a note of any apps and config you need, then reformat / and install 10.04 into it. Let the install procedure pick up the existing /home/$username folder - it should sort things out for you. If possible, avoid replacing it later; have it there, /in situ/, first. ' move /home into a separate filesystem' copy and paste ok? Is this 'separate filesystem' typically a separate independent partition such as a backup disk or backup partition? Or is the 'separate filesystem intended maybe to be the target partition for the new install though? Not clear at all about this. *If* I was to copy my home dir, I would do one of two things: either cp -a (copy with archiving etc. man cp for the options) or: tar it into a tarball. IMHO *moving a user's home dir is fraught with issues. The OP didn't mention that you don't want to do this whilst being logged (as the same user) in for example ;-) Or would I be using the Install Partitioning option 'manual' where I nominate the directories and check off which should or should not be formatted? All good questions and I think we should provide you a decent answer that is a foolproof as can be. Wiki? Mmm. I am greatly appreciative of the responses. I do though, have to make my inexperienced mind up by Monday. Is cp -a (options) done from a live CD or is it done from within the working mounted system? I am still very unclear about the target of the paste of /home/username: is this 'separate filesystem' typically a separate independent partition such as a backup disk or backup partition? Or is the 'separate filesystem intended maybe to be the target partition for the new install though? Not clear at all about this. tia -- alan cocks Ubuntu user -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
I have a friend with Ubuntu 9.04 and I will do a version upgrade for them soon. One option is to version upgrade online to 9.10 and then, at another convenient future date, version upgrade to 10.04 LTS, which they will stay with for a longer time. Another option is to do a clean reinstall of Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS now, and then re-configure to match the user's apps and data. One suggestion I have received is, that after a clean reinstall of 10.04.1, I could then replace the clean /home/username directory with the copy of the directory from the user's 9.04 which I would have created earlier in careful backups. Thinking of this last option, I find a number of questions come to mind. What is the effect of brutally just replacing /home/username from an earlier version, possibly two or so versions old? The user has one app for example, Digikam (in Ubuntu) which they regularly use, and this I guess uses a number of kde libraries whatever. I cannot help wondering what sort of clean up (or chaos) I might be faced with, perhaps out of my depth too, by following this latter approach. I would welcome comments here. tia -- alan cocks Ubuntu user -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?
On 17 September 2010 21:11, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: I have a friend with Ubuntu 9.04 and I will do a version upgrade for them soon. One option is to version upgrade online to 9.10 and then, at another convenient future date, version upgrade to 10.04 LTS, which they will stay with for a longer time. Another option is to do a clean reinstall of Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS now, and then re-configure to match the user's apps and data. One suggestion I have received is, that after a clean reinstall of 10.04.1, I could then replace the clean /home/username directory with the copy of the directory from the user's 9.04 which I would have created earlier in careful backups. Thinking of this last option, I find a number of questions come to mind. What is the effect of brutally just replacing /home/username from an earlier version, possibly two or so versions old? The user has one app for example, Digikam (in Ubuntu) which they regularly use, and this I guess uses a number of kde libraries whatever. I cannot help wondering what sort of clean up (or chaos) I might be faced with, perhaps out of my depth too, by following this latter approach. I would welcome comments here. Get them onto the LTS release *now* and then you can safely leave 'em there 'til 2012. *Don't* put them onto 9.10, it's already obsolescent. Me, personally, I'd say wipe reload. It's easier than doing 9.04 - 9.10 followed by 9.10 - 10.04. Just move /home into a separate filesystem, if it isn't already, make a note of any apps and config you need, then reformat / and install 10.04 into it. Let the install procedure pick up the existing /home/$username folder - it should sort things out for you. If possible, avoid replacing it later; have it there, /in situ/, first. -- Liam Proven • Info profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
