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**umarzuki** · Dec 02, 2008, 08:43 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

after dapper is feisty right?

1. run full upgrade
# sudo aptitude full-upgrade
2. change in /etc/apt/sources.list every dapper word to feisty and run update and upgrade to feisty
# sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

I'm new to KDE but not the CLI

**arochester** · Dec 02, 2008, 10:01 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

1) The post by umarzuki is right as far as it goes, but for you it might not go far enough. You can only upgrade from one version to the next e.g. 6.04 to 6.10, 6.10 to 7.04 and so on, and not from 6.04 to 8.04 -so you are effectively going to do a new install.

2) You won't have to uninstall Dapper first. You just need to do the new install in the same place.

3) If you don't have a separate home partition be aware that everything will get erased. If you have stuff you want to keep look first at "How to reinstal Kubuntu " on http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3096164.0 and "Create a separate home partition in Ubuntu" on http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome

4) The places to look for dual booting are probably http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_w...lled_first.htm and http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/

**Optiker** · Dec 02, 2008, 03:27 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Thanks to both of you.

Correct - I guess I don't want to do one-at-a-time, so will need to do a reinstall. Thanks for the pointers. I'll DL 8.04 and have a try at it.

I vaguely recall the discussion regarding a home partition, but was intimidated by the thought, and wasn't so committed to Kubuntu that I was sure I'd care anyhow. Now, I think I will be staying with Kubuntu, so will try to get that done, then update to 8.04, then try to stay with updates, about one behind the current.

Thanks again...I'll probably be back with more questions as I get into it.

Optiker.

**Optiker** · Dec 03, 2008, 01:06 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Originally posted by arochester

3) If you don't have a separate home partition be aware that everything will get erased. If you have stuff you want to keep look first at "How to reinstal Kubuntu " on http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3096164.0 and "Create a separate home partition in Ubuntu" on http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome

I've read the referenced material and have three questions:

(1) The article on creating a home partition says to not do it if the available space is under 30 GB. The drive Kubuntu is currently residing on is a 25 GB drive, with about 20 GB currently free. What is your recommendation regarding creating a home partition in view of the comment regarding drives under 30 GB?

(2) I don't have a Kubuntu Live CD, but do have a GParted Live CD. Can I use that instead of a Kubuntu Live CD, if, in fact, it is still OK to create a home partition per question (1).

(3) If (1) and (2) are OK, what size partition would you recommend for the new home partition?

Thanks!
Optiker

**jglen490** · Dec 03, 2008, 10:16 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

I haven't read the referenced article's advice nor it's rationale for the limitation on a separate /home.

I have a 12GB drive. I have a separate /home -- works fine. What I don't do a lot of is downloading and saving huge audio and video files. I do keep some on my drive, but I usually dump something after enjoying. I do keep still pics, but they don't typically take up a lot of space. Here's df -h of my drive:

Code:

john@john-laptop:/etc$ df -h
Filesystem      Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       4.7G 3.1G 1.4G 70% /
varrun        252M 160K 252M  1% /var/run
varlock        252M   0 252M  0% /var/lock
udev         252M  44K 252M  1% /dev
devshm        252M   0 252M  0% /dev/shm
lrm          252M  39M 213M 16% /lib/modules/2.6.24-22-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2       6.1G 3.1G 2.7G 55% /home

In the end, you need to analyze your needs and make your own decision. And one more thing, if your first decision doesn't work, try something else

! Above all enjoy your system and your Linux freedom.

**toad** · Dec 04, 2008, 01:52 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

1) The question is really how much space to reserve for / - are you one who installs a lot of software, tries out new things, etc.? If so / should be larger than 5GB (I've had it nearly fill up 10GB once). Otherwise 5GB should be plenty. Also bear in mind that sizes can adjusted afterwards, so you don't have to get it spot on first time round.

So swap being around 1GB (desktop, right? - no hibernation) and / being 5GB you have 19GB left for /home.

2) It is common consensus that it is a good idea to partition the drive prior to installation using a gparted live CD so green light there. But when you say you do not have a Kubuntu live CD - how are you going to install (but I'm sure that I just misunderstood, no need to clarify...).

HTH

**Optiker** · Dec 04, 2008, 06:07 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Thanks jglen and toad!

jglen...that's very encouraging...looks like a go for me.

toad...first off, I've downloaded the 8.04 ISO. If that's also a live CD that I can run Kubuntu from without installation (as in the case of Knoppix for example) - and now that you mention it, I think the last time I did this, 6.06 was a live CD - then I guess I do have a live CD.

Regarding my usage driving the size of the partitions, I'm afraid I'm stuck with Windows being my primary boot. My wife uses the computer, and it would not be a good idea to ask her to learn a new OS, even as just a casual user. So, I am committed to keeping Windows as the primary boot. Why that's relevant is because I have most of my data on partitions accessible to both Windows and Linux, on my primary, much larger drive. Large files, like wav files and digital photo files are stored on their own FAT32 partitions on the large drive (since at the time I last installed Kubuntu, R/W NTSF was not for noobs like me). So, I need very little data storage on the Linux drive. I also don't do a lot of experimenting with new programs in Linux since Kubuntu is my preferred OS for certain operations and I have established preferred programs for those, and generally don't feel a need to look for others. I'm really just a user, not a developer or tweaker in Linux. So, again, I don't need a lot of space for experimenting with new programs. That could change if I ever got it to work well enough with certain games I enjoy, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Finally, I guess I don't understand how a home partition works. For example, I have an existing Kubuntu installation that takes up about 5 GB, with about 20 GB free on the drive. Let's just say that I split off a home partition of 18 GB, just to allow a bit of slop with the existing installation. When I start the 8.04 installation, where does it install - in the current (now 7 GB) partition over the old installation, or in the new /home partition? My purpose in setting up a home partition is so that in the future, when I update, I don't lose my settings and personalization kinds of things. Pardon my thick skull, but I guess I just don't understand the mechanics.

Thanks again, and especially if anybody can explain how the home partition works using my example above.

Optiker

**toad** · Dec 04, 2008, 06:19 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

/home is no more really than how your apps look and behave - and your storage space if you want to (videos, music, whatever). You have plenty of space, so without further ado I'd go for an 8GB /, 1GB swap and the rest /home. That should see you through the next couple of years

**Qqmike** · Dec 04, 2008, 06:32 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Optiker, you can specify what goes where on your disk by:

Using the Live Kubuntu CD installer,
in the How to Partition step -- I think that's Step 4,
Select "Manual" (that's the last option in the list, I think);

Step 5: You will see all your partitions that you made.
The menu there lets you specify where to put /home, swap, and root (/), by selecting and clicking Modify or Edit partition (I can't recall exactly the wording).

**Optiker** · Dec 04, 2008, 07:07 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Originally posted by Qqmike

Optiker, you can specify what goes where on your disk by:

Thanks Q...I understand that, but don't know where I'm supposed to install 8.04 in an update from 6.06, with a new home partition, so as to retain my settings and other personal preference stuff from 6.06.

Optiker

**toad** · Dec 05, 2008, 12:18 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Hi Optiker,

to retain all your old preferences you will need to tell the installer - in the manual partitioning interface - about your existing /home partition. The question is: do you have one?

If not, do you mind jumping through a couple of hoops to either create one retrospectively and dumping everything in there or, simpler, copying the contents of your existing /home onto a USB stick or whatever and copying it over to the new system?

**Optiker** · Dec 05, 2008, 07:33 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Thanks toad!

Earlier in this thread I think we established that I don't currently have a home partition, and arochester posted a link for how to create one. At this point, I'm just trying to understand how a home partition works. I've read lots of places to create a home partition because it will let me save my preferences, etc., but it never goes on to tell me what to do with it once I create it.

At this point, I'm willing to create one and think I know how, but my question then is, what do I do when I install 8.04 to save my preferences? Unless I missed it, I have yet to see anything that tells me what to do with the old installation (delete it, copy parts of it to the home partition and delete the rest, install the new to the home partition and let the old one stay where it is, etc., and where to put the new one.

Hope that clarifies what I'm trying to learn.

Sorry to be so slow...I'm not very experienced in Linux, even though I've been dabbling in it for years. I need to understand the whole path forward and feel comfortable with it before starting.

Optiker

**toad** · Dec 05, 2008, 08:32 AM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

Thanks for your patience. I have not read the whole thread, I freely admit it

The easiest way out for you, imo, is to

1) boot up your old install, copy the contents of your entire /home folder including hidden files onto a removable device (CD, USB drive, DVD)
2) install the new Kubuntu over the old one (no need to delete it first)
3) copy the contents of the removable device over to your new /home, overwriting everything there was before

This way you will not loose looks and behaviour of KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice and all the other apps you may have installed.

I hope this goes some way to solving your problem or at least opens up a path one could follow (there are others, of course

).

**Optiker** · Dec 05, 2008, 05:44 PM

Re: Dapper to

- returning to Linux, so a newbie

I think I'm beginning to understand a little more. Also, after looking in my /home folder and finding very little in it, and doing a little more reading on home partitions, I see that somehow I've missing the point. I'm sure that even a noob at this should have realized that The /home folder is where one stores his data - image files, documents, misc files, etc. In Windows, I always have a D-drive (partition) separate from the C-drive, that I use for all of my data, downloads, etc. so that it's separate from the operating system.

Am I correct in understanding that the /home partition would be the equivalent of my D-drive in Windows? If so, I think I can safely create the /home partition and reinstall Kubuntu 8.04 over my 6.06 installation. Then, I think I can follow the several step-by-step processes I've seen to mount the new /home partition and use it.

My misunderstanding was that somehow by creating and using a /home partition, I could install a new version and automatically retain things like my customized settings in places like fstab, sources.list, printers, desktop environment, and other software and hardware settings, etc. Looks like that's not possible - at least not easy for somebody with my expertise.

So, I guess that leaves me with creating a new /home partition, copying files in the current /home folder to it, installing 8.04, mounting the new /home partition, and going through the process of re-establishing my custom settings and programs.

Thanks for your help.

Optiker

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