Hi
Can anybody tell me if this will work or just blow up in my face. I want to install Mint 9 on a computer currently running Ubuntu Karmic. But I don't want to mess with the current /home partition.So I plan to:
1. Install mint 9 on my current root partition (this will be formatted and cleanly installed from Mint LiveCD)
2. Create the same users who are currently on system.
3. Copy the contents (hidden files etc) of new mint user directories to old Karmic user directories.
4. then mount current karmic /home partition at /home of the new MInt install.
Any pitfalls I'm missing here? Has anybody done this here?
emk
Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
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emkamau
Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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JasonLG
Re: Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
I've done it, it'll work. If I were you I wouldn't use any of your Ubuntu hidden folders from your /home they can mess things up. The same procedure I use to upgrade versions of Mint will work on this.
1. Delete all hidden folders in /home.
2. Restart computer, boot off Mint CD.
3. Install new Mint over old Mint(Ubuntu in your case) reformatting all partitions except /home using the same username and password and mounting old /home as /home.
The end result should be a new Mint system with all your old data right where you left it.
1. Delete all hidden folders in /home.
2. Restart computer, boot off Mint CD.
3. Install new Mint over old Mint(Ubuntu in your case) reformatting all partitions except /home using the same username and password and mounting old /home as /home.
The end result should be a new Mint system with all your old data right where you left it.
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emkamau
Re: Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
thanks jasonLG
I'll do this in the next day or two and report back here.
emk
I'll do this in the next day or two and report back here.
emk
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ashermechwel
Re: Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
Wow nice information. i also think about that install Mint over Karmic and i got solution from this nice post. but your tell me its working or not because i am not done this step.
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emkamau
DONE: Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
So I'm done with the install.
everything went relatively smoothly. I now have a spanking new Mint desktop. I'm writing this on my Archlinux laptop because as soon as my 12 yo daughter saw the Mint install on the family computer she declared "It's so cool!" jumped on the computer to configure her desktop just the way she likes it. I had allowed myself 2 hours for the install it actually took me less than 1.5 hrs. This included restoring NFS deleting old .gnome* and .gconf* folders from the user directories. Recreating a whole bunch of directories for nfs and setting up the users.
Initial Observations:
Its fast, very fast as compared to Karmic. It boots up fast and is much faster in usage.
Pitfalls (really minor niggles)
Despite copying the .gnome* .gconf* etc files from the new install to the old. I still had my old environment when I logged in. I had to delete .gnome* .gconf* then log out and log back in to get the Mint desktop.
Also switching between users led to a white screen and loss of the keyboard. I had to reboot to recover. This has not happened again. To be fair Karmic had a similar problem. On logging out when other users were logged in the user would sometimes be dropped to a console with system messages
My daughter also had some problems with panels. She added 3 more panels but they were invisible and could not be configured. Apps however respected the panels and did not fill the screen when maximized. Deleting the .gnome* and .gconf* and .gvfs (after logging out) and logging back in again seems to have fixed the problem.
Thats it so far.
emk
everything went relatively smoothly. I now have a spanking new Mint desktop. I'm writing this on my Archlinux laptop because as soon as my 12 yo daughter saw the Mint install on the family computer she declared "It's so cool!" jumped on the computer to configure her desktop just the way she likes it. I had allowed myself 2 hours for the install it actually took me less than 1.5 hrs. This included restoring NFS deleting old .gnome* and .gconf* folders from the user directories. Recreating a whole bunch of directories for nfs and setting up the users.
Initial Observations:
Its fast, very fast as compared to Karmic. It boots up fast and is much faster in usage.
Pitfalls (really minor niggles)
Despite copying the .gnome* .gconf* etc files from the new install to the old. I still had my old environment when I logged in. I had to delete .gnome* .gconf* then log out and log back in to get the Mint desktop.
Also switching between users led to a white screen and loss of the keyboard. I had to reboot to recover. This has not happened again. To be fair Karmic had a similar problem. On logging out when other users were logged in the user would sometimes be dropped to a console with system messages
My daughter also had some problems with panels. She added 3 more panels but they were invisible and could not be configured. Apps however respected the panels and did not fill the screen when maximized. Deleting the .gnome* and .gconf* and .gvfs (after logging out) and logging back in again seems to have fixed the problem.
Thats it so far.
emk
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JasonLG
Re: Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
Right on, glad to hear everything went over with not much of a hitch. My next suggestion is replace Firefox with Chromium, that's of course if you aren't a hardcore Firefox user 
To me Chromium seems to be a bit faster to open and load pages and the interface takes up less screen real estate. I also do a lot to thin the herd as it were with the default app. There's a lot of stuff I don't use which goes bye bye from the default install. It would be nice to see a "lite" version of Mint that just installed the core, Mint tools, the desktop environment and maybe a browser. But that's a whole different post all together 
To me Chromium seems to be a bit faster to open and load pages and the interface takes up less screen real estate. I also do a lot to thin the herd as it were with the default app. There's a lot of stuff I don't use which goes bye bye from the default install. It would be nice to see a "lite" version of Mint that just installed the core, Mint tools, the desktop environment and maybe a browser. But that's a whole different post all together -
emkamau
Re: Can I install Mint over Karmic /home?
Chromium is great, I started using it a little while back and its quickly become my main browser. But for everybody else here the firefox personas carry the day.
Now I have to say I'm very impressed with Mint even in the short time I had with it. I had my wife's laptop on Karmic and she was just OK with it, I moved her to Mint and she actually likes it. This is what led me to put the rest of the household on Mint. So I'm basically on Arch, Mint and a mythtv box thats on Karmic. But I heartily recommend Mint to anybody, even over Arch Linux which is a very good distro indeed.
emk
Now I have to say I'm very impressed with Mint even in the short time I had with it. I had my wife's laptop on Karmic and she was just OK with it, I moved her to Mint and she actually likes it. This is what led me to put the rest of the household on Mint. So I'm basically on Arch, Mint and a mythtv box thats on Karmic. But I heartily recommend Mint to anybody, even over Arch Linux which is a very good distro indeed.
emk