Migrate to LMDE from Ubuntu / LinuxMint

[Eucalyptus]

Hi,

May be I use wrong keywords, searching for LMDE migration didn't find any post. Can you please advise if the following installation procedure will preserve the user profile and application settings:

- Current OS: Ubuntu or Mint
- root and /home are on separate partition
- Install LMDE fresh, re-using /home without formatting.
- Re-install some applications which are not shipped in standard with LMDE (Linphone, Virtualbox, etc.)

This is actually what I did when I installed Mint 10 RC on top of Ubuntu 10.04. My profile settings (desktop settings and application settings) are all preserved.
Would this be also the case of LMDE? If not, would it require minor adjustment or would that lead to big troubles?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Carl]

I think it could do with some minor adjustment

simplest solution would be to rename you home folder and then select the home partition in the LMDE installer and not format the partition but just select to use it and then transfer settings and folders across to the new home folder created by the installer

if not then you could delete all the system settings and stuff in your current home folder and just leave certain application settings in there such as firebox and thunderbird... otherwise it could cause conflicts and bugs etc.

[Eucalyptus]

simplest solution would be to rename you home folder and then select the home partition in the LMDE installer and not format the partition but just select to use it and then transfer settings and folders across to the new home folder created by the installer

Is this equivalent to just re-use the previous home folder directly ? (by creating the same user name at the installation time)

[sgosnell]

Just install LMDE, and as long as you choose to mount your current /home partition as /home, and don't check the Format box, it will all work ok. I retained the same settings I had under Ubuntu, including top and bottom panel, theme, and pretty much everything. The look and feel were slightly different, but not that much.

[Eucalyptus]

Just install LMDE, and as long as you choose to mount your current /home partition as /home, and don't check the Format box, it will all work ok. I retained the same settings I had under Ubuntu, including top and bottom panel, theme, and pretty much everything. The look and feel were slightly different, but not that much.

Ok thanks. please clarify "The look and feel were slightly different". Different compared to what?

1. Different compare to a fresh LMDE install with /home reformated
OR
2. Different compared to the Ubuntu Look and Feel

Thanks

[sgosnell]

Both. I got something that was a mixture of LMDE and Ubuntu. I got the MintMenu, and also the Ubuntu menu, both operational. I still use the Ubuntu menu more often than not, because I'm used to it. I retained my top panel, which I really like. The splash is mint, the wallpaper was changed by wallpapoz, now by drapes, but I could have retained wallpapoz if I had wanted. The settings in /home pretty much stayed the same, so I didn't get the full effect of the Mint environment. It's possible to move either way by tweaking the settings, depending on one's preferences. I've moved more toward the Mint look, but not entirely.

[michaelzap]

You might try not reusing your entire home directory but just copying the specific files and folders that you know that you need on the new installation. I routinely do this when reinstalling Ubuntu, and I prefer it to reusing the whole home directory. To me that's closer to an upgrade installation than I want, since I like to start fresh periodically and flush out the cruft.

So for example, I always copy over program folders with configs that I know I need, such as Filezilla, grsync, and Pidgin. But I don't copy over all of the other folders with generic system and Gnome configs, since I prefer to just redo my customizations and tweaks (perhaps differently this time). I keep the old home directory around in case I find that I do need something else later (which usually happens at least once in the first week or so), so there's no risk to doing it this way.

[Suo_Eno]

Wanted to try LMDE so bad last night so made a live USB unetbooted.I have planned with this same approach to keep my /home and just format+reuse /boot,swap and /.Reason?My 2 external USB HDDs are on loan (this is what friends are for when you don't need them ;p hehe) and the 2 Win 7 PCs are in dire need for backup routines as well so I'm out of luck to move my /home stuff.The live USB booted OK but for 2 attempts at installation I'd get stuck at "mounting /dev/sda6 /target/".Hdd didn't seem to do anything so was the stick at that moment.A few things I've noticed though that may or may not have went against my favour:-

1) Install grub - Is this grub or grub2?Necessary or not?Whichever the case it shouldn't have messed up mounting right?Left that checked however obviously.

2) So if it's either the iso file flunked on me or unetbootin, can a sudo dd copy alternative work?

3) OR I'm stuck to wait for my external USB HDDs and do the best available option which is clean install?

I want to give this another shot tonight or maybe after work tomorrow so I'm dl'ing a fresh copy on torrent.

[benny59]

Hi you all,

I am running LMDE since day one on my laptop. I am so excited that I'd like to migrate our family desktop to it. As this desktop is shared and running also Puppy, I am investigating if it's ubuntu (latest version updated) partition can be moved to LMDE seamlessy with not fresh installation from scratch. Otherwise I need to tailor a new configuration for that machine.

What I am asking is how to say to the installation: "from now on you are LMDE, keep it in sync !"

am I crazy or leazy ?

benny

[sgosnell]

Suo_Eno, you didn't have non-alphabetic characters in your username, did you? That seems to be the most common cause of installation hangs.

[Suo_Eno]

@sgosnell

Username?Nope it's just a 4 letter lowercase all.

[sgosnell]

Did the .iso md5sum check correctly?

[Suo_Eno]

Fresh iso file dl'ed passed md5sum.Moved it to my Win 7 rig and used Universal USB Installer although I'm still sure that unetbootin works but anyways I'm typing this in LMDE while waiting for this 500+ updates getting applied.In short had to redo /boot and / partitions,only kept /home so it's like a half clean install.Now I gotta figure out why is this main menu's icons gigantic.Thanks for putting up with me sgonsnell

[sgosnell]

No worries. IME unetbootin for Linux is problematic, and makes faulty CDs and USB installs far too often. I never trust a unetbootin burn completely. If you have Windows, I think ImgBurn is a better choice. The only advantage unetbootin has is that it will download an image from the web and burn it, without your having to have the image already on your HDD. Other than that, I don't like it much, and I rarely use it that way, because most of the images I want to use, unetbootin doesn't know about, LMDE being one.