Clean install on populated HD

[oldgeek]

I have downloaded the latest Kubuntu 12.04 on a USB pendrive and have tried it out and am ready to do a clean install. Despite the fact that I have been using Kubuntu for quite awhile now (since 8.04) I have never made a clean install on a hard disk which is already partitioned, and so I don't want to make a mistake. I'm using a desktop PC-clone type computer with an Intel core i3-2100 processor running at 3.1 ghz. My memory is 4 gb. My hard disk is partitioned in 3 ways: one with Windows 7, one with Kubuntu 11.04 (default) and the third with Ubuntu 11.04. What I want to do is the following: 1) keep the Windows 7 partition intact, 2) install Kubuntu 12.04 lts where the current Kubuntu resides, 3) eliminate Ubuntu 11.04 entirely and recover the space it leaves behind to share between Windows and Kubuntu. I also want to save all my documents and my Firefox settings and favorites, as well as install the basic microsoft TT fonts like Arial and Trebuchet.
What do I do?

[vw72]

It isn't a problem to do what you want. Just select manual partitioning during the install. However, with the way your hard drive is configured, you would need to manually back up all of your documents and settings. A better approach would be to have a windows partition, which you do, a kubuntu partition and a home partition. That way, in future installs, you the home partition with all of your files and settings remains intact. How big are the two linux partitions right now?

Also, another option you might want to explore is to upgrade your Kubuntu 11.04 in place to 12.04. That way your documents and firefox settings should still be intact. If that is successful, you could use the partition manager to reformat the Ubuntu 11.04 partition and afterwards move your /home folder to it and edit the /etc/fstab to point to the new location and reboot.

Regardless, I would backup my documents and tell firefox to export your bookmarks to an html file and back that up, too.

As for the fonts, installing the kubuntu-restricted-extras for mp3 playback also installs the fonts, so they shouldn't be a problem.

[oshunluvr]

Since windows doesn't read any linux formats (easily) and windows formats are junk (fat,vfat,ntfs) your best bet is to mount the windows drive directly. You can save files onto the windows partition if you want to share them with windows and read anything on the windows partition from kubuntu. I assume you're sharing things like photos and music and the like. One easy way is to link from your home Pictures folder to the windows Pictures folder. Then any pic saved in the Pictures folder will be available to both OS's. Repeat for each desired shared folder (Documents, Music, Videos...).

Also, you don't say what sizes your partitions are but 12-16GB is plenty for Kubuntu with a separate /home if you go that route. If you plan on sharing every data folder in your home, splitting it off is less needed - but still better than not.

[perspectoff]

I disagree with having a /home partition. I tried this. The problem is that unless you have a different user for each OS, each OS changes the files to its own liking, and the user's configuration files and folders (such as ~/.mozilla and ~/.kde) get changed by each OS and eventually become corruputed and unusable by any of the OSs.

It would be ok to create a /sharedfiles partition or something, but I just wouldn't create one named /home. Further, I don't think Windows can access an ext3 or ext4 partition (unless something has changed recently). If you are trying to share files between your Windows system and your Linux systems, I'm not sure having an extra ext3 or ext4 partition is the way to go about it (it has never worked well for me for that purpose). There's another more serious problem. Linux permissions and NTFS permissions are not compatible. I have pulled out a lot of hair trying to unlock and move and update shared files. I don't even try anymore. (Instead, I use a network NAS as a repository common to all systems on my network.)

Also, I tried the "in-place" upgrade, and, similarly, the configuration folders for many apps were not compatible (~/.filezilla for example) and caused the apps to crash. If you don't have any installed apps, then it's usually not a problem, but by the time I get around to an upgrade I have lots of apps and configuration tweaks, and these have never updated for me correctly. Gods forbid if you have built something from source or installed something from a non-Ubuntu repository! (You can kiss those goodbye after an upgrade). Then, if you have an app that relies on an old version of a database (like MySQL) and the new OS version has a new version of the database, which requires a conversion process to get the old database tables into the new database format, well, you're in for a fun time!

Instead, I backup everything to an external USB hard drive and then reimport them, if I don't have enough room on my original hard drive. (Ok, to be honest, I keep everything backed up on an external networked drive anyway...)

There is one particular thing to be careful about. When you delete a partition (and you mention you wish to delete the Ubuntu partition) it will renumber the partitions remaining if they are higher-numbered.

For example, if the Ubuntu partition is /dev/sda6 and the Kubuntu partition is /dev/sda7 and you erase the /dev/sda6 Ubuntu partition, then the Kubuntu partition will be renumbered to /dev/sda6 (and this can be problematic).

To tell the honest truth, using KDE Partition Manager from your existing Kubuntu partition, after backing up or moving all its data, I would reformat the Ubuntu partition to ext4 (which will erase the data on the partition) and then merely shrink it to a few Mb (say 50 Mb, or whatever token amount you wish to designate) as a placeholder. This will maintain the partition relationships, numbering, etc. You can then move the shrunken partition left or right so that the free space appears next to your remaining Kubuntu partition.

To expand the Kubuntu partition you would have to use KDE Partition Manager from a LiveCD, since you can't manipulate a partition while running the OS that is on it. (I think you can expand the partition during the manual installation process during "manual" partitioning, as well, but I can't remember.)

An even better thing to do, IMO, is to install your new Kubuntu version on top of the existing Ubuntu version. That's a trivial thing to do using the manual partitioning process -- just designate the old Ubuntu partition as the partition in which to install the new version of Kubuntu. Once the new Kubuntu version is installed, migrate everything from the old Kubuntu version's partition to the new one's, and make sure everything works in the new Kubuntu OS. Once everything is migrated smoothly and you are sure everything works, then you can shrink (and/or erase) the old Kubuntu partition and regain free space from it.

Yup. That's what I'd recommend (and is what I do every time.)

[james147]

There is one particular thing to be careful about. When you delete a partition (and you mention you wish to delete the Ubuntu partition) it will renumber the partitions remaining if they are higher-numbered.

I don't recall this ever happening for me but to remember my partitions keeping their originally assigned numbers. Not to mention that kubuntu doesn't really user the partition numbers for anything... grub and fstab use the uuid to identify the filesystem as they aren't affected by changes in the disk configuration.

So even if the numbers did change, which I don't think they will, it wont really matter much.

[BigAl-sa]

I disagree with having a /home partition. I tried this. The problem is that unless you have a different user for each OS, each OS changes the files to its own liking, and the user's configuration files and folders (such as ~/.mozilla and ~/.kde) get changed by each OS and eventually become corruputed and unusable by any of the OSs.

[snip]

Also, I tried the "in-place" upgrade, and, similarly, the configuration folders for many apps were not compatible (~/.filezilla for example) and caused the apps to crash. If you don't have any installed apps, then it's usually not a problem, but by the time I get around to an upgrade I have lots of apps and configuration tweaks, and these have never updated for me correctly. Gods forbid if you have built something from source or installed something from a non-Ubuntu repository! (You can kiss those goodbye after an upgrade). Then, if you have an app that relies on an old version of a database (like MySQL) and the new OS version has a new version of the database, which requires a conversion process to get the old database tables into the new database format, well, you're in for a fun time!

[snip]

I've used a /home partition across three different OSes (Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Debian - triple boot) with no ill effects. (fwiw, I've also copied a ~/.mozilla directory between machines).

Wrt in-place upgrades, my one machine has been continuously upgraded since 7.04 and is still running strong (even though it is getting on a bit). My missus's machine has been updated since 8.04 and I am just waiting for 12.04 to stabilise and I will upgrade it again.

Sent from my PMP5080B using Tapatalk 2

[james147]

I've used a /home partition across three different OSes (Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Debian - triple boot) with no ill effects. (fwiw, I've also copied a ~/.mozilla directory between machines).

The problem with sharing /home with different distros is that newer config files from the later versions are sometimes incompatible with older versions of software. Its normally fine to go from an older version to a newer one, but it doesn't normally work the other way (assuming the configs structure has changed between the versions) which causes problems when you switch to an older distro.

This problem might not always happen, but there is that risk.

That said separate /home partitions are still a good idea, even if they are not meant to be shared.

[oshunluvr]

My own personal take on this matter, having done it both ways in the past, is to keep /home within the install, keep external data (Docs, Music, Vids, etc.) on a separate partition with links to my /home, and backup the contents of /home.

To me, this provides the best combination of data security without the danger (however slight) that I might mess up a config file of some program.

Although I must say that I also relocate my email folders (~/.thunderbird), my virtual machines (~/.VirtualBox), and a couple others to the data partition as these folders do not need separation from distros - IMO...

[oldgeek]

Thanks to all those who have responded to the original post. I will have to postpone installing the new OS for a few days due to the quantity of work I have to do, but your comments have given me some options to think about. What I will probably do is to install both the new Kubuntu and the Ubuntu systems onto the old ones after saving my home folders on both. At least now I know how to do that, thanks to all of you. What I don't know is how to save my Firefox settings, or at least the bookmarks, or how to install them on the new OS version. One last question: does Flash work on K 12.04? I'm currently using 11.04 and it crashes frequently.

[oshunluvr]

You can sign up for Firefox Sync or copy the ~/.mozilla folder to your new install.

Flash works for me, but I use Chrome.