Upgrading to Felicia via new install

[varaonaid]

Hello,

I tried to search for this but the forum consistently would exclude the word "home" or "/home". Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere...

I multiple partitions on my HD. Windows, Ubuntu, Mint 5 (Elyssa), my /home, shared files partition and swap. I want to simply install Mint 6 on the Ubuntu partition. I know that I use the manual partition editor in the install setup. Choose the Ubuntu partition as the / mount point and also choose to format it. Here's the part I'm unclear about...I'd like to simply use the same /home/myuser as I do on the Mint 5 partition. Is there a reason I shouldn't do this? Assuming that it's OK to do, how would you go about doing it? Choose that partition as the /home mount point and then use the exact user name as the current install? Will that overwrite what's currently there? What will happen? If I shouldn't share for some reason please let me know. Also, please advise if there's another way I should set that up.

Thanks so much in advance!

All the best,
Rae

[Husse]

You are almost right
In the present home move all the hidden files and folders into some backup folder in home - if you don't you will get some problems
Then Choose that partition as the /home mount point and then use the exact user name as the current install?
Nothing will be touched except hidden files and folders (because that's were the settings are) and you moved them into a backup folder
The reason not to delete them is that you may find settings for your applications there that you can use

[varaonaid]

Awesome! Thanks for the help. I *really* appreciate it.

One more thing...any idea if I'll be able to use the Mint 5 install if the new config files are there? I doubt that I'll need to go back to it but I'm curious, just in case.

Thanks again!

[Husse]

Do you mean install Elyssa?
Regardless of which Mint you install (upgrade/downgrade) move the hidden files and folders into a folder or you will have a mix of settings. And as I wrote you can find the settings for your applications in the moved files and copy it into the right place.
Takes a bit of knowledge but so does installing a distro...

[varaonaid]

Sorry, guess I should have been clearer. I'm currently running Mint 5 Elyssa on one partition and I'm planning to install Mint 6 Felecia on a free partition. I've moved around some setting before via hidden files so even though I'm certainly no expert, I know basically what you mean on that.

My question was simply, if I backup/remove the hidden files that Mint 5 is currently using, then install Mint 6 on the free partition using the same /home/currentusername will is still be possible for me to go back and use the Mint 5 current install or will the upgrading of those hidden files bork that installation. I can probably live with it if it does, but I was curious nonetheless.

Again, thanks for your replies. I'll hopefully get to installing it soon!

[Husse]

It will work, but not at all well
The same home for different versions is no good idea
In your case I would go on installing Felicia and not mount the current /home
When you have installed I'd create a folder in home and mount the old home there
I have done that and I mount to Data
In /etc/fstab I have a line like this

Code: Select all

/dev/sda3				/home/mats/Data 	ext3	relatime	0	2

Of course you probably don't have sda3 but apart from that you could use this line if your present home is formatted with ext3 which I guess it is
This is what I currently recommend due to the problems you get with erroneous config files
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _partition

[varaonaid]

Thanks Husse for the clarification. What you said makes total sense. I should have thought it all through better since I know all the configuration files are housed there.

Interesting idea to mount current home inside the new home (which ironically would be the same as the current home...but I digress as this is getting confusing!). Thanks for the line to add to fstab. Again, ironically, my home partition *is* sda3 so it would actually work for me. I'll do some more reading on how to *not* mount /home in my current install. If it gets too confusing, I guess I can always resort to a new /home for the new install and just move what I need over. Most of my data is access via links to a shared partition anyway.

Again, many many thanks!