[ale] how do I properly move my home folder from ubuntu to mint

[Wolf Halton]

I use a separate /home dir and also copy the old home folder to a removable
drive. If everything works as expected, I don't have to load back from the
removable. I feel a move from Ubuntu to Linux Mint or debian-testing in my
near future as well, Ron.  I like Ubuntu, but a good change would be fun.
I work in a Red Hat shop now, so there is some argument for running CEntOS
on the desktop, as well.

Wolf Halton
--
http://wolfhalton.info
Apache developer:
wolfhalton at apache.org
On May 26, 2013 2:23 PM, "Stephen R. Blevins" <stephen.r.blevins at gmail.com>
wrote:

> One approach:
>
> 1) Under Ubuntu:
>         a) Carve out an additional partition, sized to hold both the /home
> partition, and all but 10-20GB of the ext4 free space.  Ensure this
> partition is located at the top end of your cylinder numbers.  Use gpartd
> for this, as required.
>         b) mount this partition to some stub directory (e.g. /mnt/newpart)
>         c)  *Copy* all existing /home/* files to /mnt/newpart.
> 2)  Install Mint, specifying the "current" Ubuntu partion, but mounting
> the newly created partition to /home.
>
> I do this all the time.  Having /home as its own partition on the disk
> saves me tons of headaches.
>
> Questions?  Feel free to ask.
>
> Stephen R. Blevins
> stephen.r.blevins at gmail.com
>
> On 05/26/2013 10:19 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I just had a frustrating experience and want to learn how to avoid it
>> next time.
>>
>> Previously, I had set up all my machines to dual boot with ubuntu and
>> windows.  I've now decided to move to Mint since I'm disenchanted with
>> ubuntu.  Yes, I know they share the same core.
>>
>> The hdd in question had an ext4 partition which was ubuntu and an ntfs
>> partition which I use for data.  I booted a mint live cd, mounted the
>> ubuntu file system by clicking it within the file browser, and copied my
>> ron folder to the ntfs partition.  It complained about some files being
>> inaccessible, but still copied about 43 MB of data, which looked like
>> the right number.
>>
>> I then proceeded to install mint in the ext4 partition.  When I started
>> the installer, I selected the option to erase ubuntu and install mint. I
>> eventually got mint booting and working the way I wanted.  Then, I went
>> back into the file browser and told it to copy the files back from the
>> ntfs partition to the new mint home directory and merge any duplicate
>> folders.  I made the mistake of using a move command rather than a copy
>> command.  At some point, it generated another error saying it couldn't
>> copy some files.  I cannot remember the exact message.  I clicked skip
>> all.  The net result is that about 43 MB of data was copied to my new
>> home folder and about 387 MB of data wasn't copied. Unfortunately, the
>> files were removed from the ntfs folder even though they were skipped,
>> which I think is a design flaw.
>>
>> The net result is that I lost about 9/10 of what was in my original
>> ubuntu home folder unless I can find a backup somewhere.  I don't think
>> there was anything too critical, but who knows.
>>
>> So, can anyone please tell me the proper procedure to move the contents
>> of my home folder from a ubuntu install to a mint install so this
>> doesn't happen next time I install mint on another computer?
>>
>> Any help is appreciated and thanks in advance.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
> ______________________________**_________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/**listinfo/ale<http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale>
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/**listinfo<http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20130527/d55587f3/attachment-0001.html>