SOLVED: Question about upgrades

[SinisterSlay]

Can it do the in place upgrade from mint4win? Is there any risk of it jumping out of the virtual hard drive?

[AlbertP]

What do you want to upgrade? To a new Mint version?

[SinisterSlay]

Yeah, the new Mint looks pretty good, but I don't want to have to start all over. It took a fairly long time (and a lot of google) to configure Mint the way I want.

[AlbertP]

You can upgrade Mint to 11 using APT, but it needs 3GB of updates to download and you can almost be sure that it breaks your system.

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/62

[SinisterSlay]

So its hopeless? There is no way to upgrade without losing everything?

[AlbertP]

You can backup the /home/<yourname> folder, then you will backup all documents and program settings.
The folders with settings are hidden: if you press Ctrl-H, they become visible and you can copy them too.

But then you still have to install the software again.

[SinisterSlay]

So copying my home folder back after the upgrade will restore my settings and such? Or I should copy it over after reinstalling stuff?

[AlbertP]

All settings are in the hidden folders (that become visible with Ctrl-H) inside /home/<yourname>

But I recommend to install the programs before restoring the settings.
If you first restore the settings, and then reinstall the programs, it may overwrite the settings with the program's defaults. A well-written program should not do this, but you can never be sure.

[SinisterSlay]

Sounds good, thanks.