Re-install 8.10 [SOLVED]

[magic-chef]

I want to do a fresh install on my system. I tried to use a USB drive to back up the entire home directory but I could not get the drive to work so....

Is there a way I can move my home files to another directory which I will not format during the install (is this possible) then move over the mail files, etc.

If so, how?

[Stormbringer]

Re: Re-install 8.10

While I've not tried it myself, I've heard of people having separate /home partitions just for such occasions. Here seem to be the instructions for doing it in Ubuntu:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome

Also:
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/wiki/in...home_partition
http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/01/...own-partition/

Theoretically, the process should be generally identical for Kubuntu (with a few differences in menu names/paths).

Hope this helps (at least, until someone more knowledgeable on the subject comes along...).

[kevinc]

Re: Re-install 8.10

Before you begin a fresh install, you must backup your /home directory and verify that all of the files, especially the . files are there. To copy all of them you can use something like tar -cvf newfile.tar /home/yourname
then to extract them tar -xvf newfile.tar

There is a good link here http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...3964#msg163964
to moving home to its own partition which is a great idea, not only for re-installation.

Does your external USB drive use vfat, ntfs, ext3 or what filesystem? Kubuntu reads and writes most.
Was the drive recognized or not?

Hope this helps.

[quarkslot]

Re: Re-install 8.10

The links provided by Stormbringer look good, read them and pick the one which seems best for you. You can find a lot more information on partitions here:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3090704.0

Assuming you have a big enough hard drive I would always recommend separate partitions for / and /home.

Once you have successfully relocated /home to a separate partition you can proceed with a fresh install:

- run the installer, when it gets to disk partitioning select 'Manual'.
- tell the partitioner a) to format and mount / and b) to mount your existing /home as /home but NOT format it.
- The rest should happen automatically though just to be safe I always use the same username and login as before!

Good luck and BTW do try and backup your data beforehand, I have never lost data doing this sort of thing but that does not mean the process is foolproof (do you have a DVD/CD burner?)

[magic-chef]

Re: Re-install 8.10

Thanks to all...I'll let you know how it works out.

Oh, BTW, How large should I make the /home partition?

[jglen490]

Re: Re-install 8.10

First, see how large your current /home is. If it is on it's own partition, you can check the size like this:

john@john-laptop:/etc/udev$ df -h
Filesystem      Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       4.7G 3.0G 1.5G 68% /
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 2.9G 2.9G 50% /home

Or, if not, you can try this:

john@john-laptop:/etc/udev$ sudo du -sh /home
[sudo] password for john:
2.7G  /home
john@john-laptop:/etc/udev$

The results of each are different, but it gives you a decent approximation. Anyway, if you think that you will want to download and keep more movies, music, photos, etc.; or you get a LOT of email; then just make more space available in your next fresh install. If you look at monce, you see that I have a relatively small /home partition, but it is not very full either. I don't keep a lot of "stuff" on my computer, but your situation may be different.

In short, it's hard to tell you how much space to rewserve for /home without knowing what your requirements are.

[magic-chef]

Re: Re-install 8.10

I just installed a fresh 8.10 with a /home partition. I'm having a problem with the new video card but, I'll take it to hardware.

Thanks