[HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

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karlchen
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Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by karlchen »

Hello, webslave.

I do not expect you to find out for me why Ubuntu 12.04.1 Unity converted to Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon starts using as much energy as good old Lucid Lynx did/still does on the same notebook. Just mentioned it because it might be an unwanted side effect of converting.
Anyway.
Just for the fun of it and because a few days off give me the time to do so, I have backed up the whole "Pangolin Unity turnt into Maya Cinnamon" installation. (Cheap large external USB harddrives are a wonderful invention.)
Next I have setup the same system from the scratch using the genuine ISO image linuxmint-13-cinnamon-dvd-32bit.iso. I have installed exactly the same list of additional software which had been installed on the "Pangolin Unity turnt into Maya Cinnamon" system. The same configuration settings have been re-applied and my data restored as well. All available updates have been applied.
By now the genuine "Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon" is up and running and finished.
The list of installed software packages has been collected by running the command

Code: Select all

dpkg-query --show > Maya_x86_installed_software_genuine.txt
A first quick comparison of Maya_x86_installed_software_02.txt ("Pangolin Unity turnt into Maya Cinnamon") with Maya_x86_installed_software_genuine.txt (Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon) reveals an amazing amount of differences.
Only a part of them can be eliminated as irrelevant, because in a few cases MintUpdater installed more recent software packages on the freshly installed Maya than it had done yesterday on the converted Pangolin.
I will have to go through the list of differences, eliminate those that are accounted for by more recent updates, and carefully examine the relevance of the rest.
Don't know whether anybody will have any use for the two lists, yet, they have been attached to this post anyway, just in case.
Time to call it quits for tonight. (2 am local time)

Cheers,
Karl
--
Maya_x86_installed_software_genuine_compared_to_Maya_x86_installed_software_02.txt.zip
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Ballards

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by Ballards »

I _needed_ the instructions, and was excited to find this topic. But, the original link for the instructions is dead. Could someone please repost the instructions directly in this forum please?
webslave

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by webslave »

Sorry about that. The domain I had was through .tk and they cancelled it. So I'm working on getting it transferred to a new domain. Give me a few days here. I've been working some crazy hours and haven't had a day off in almost a month.
mbman88

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by mbman88 »

webslave wrote:Sorry about that. The domain I had was through .tk and they cancelled it. So I'm working on getting it transferred to a new domain. Give me a few days here. I've been working some crazy hours and haven't had a day off in almost a month.
I could also use this information. It's truly diabolical what they did to your link page... but please if you could fix it some time soon.. I hate to see this problem on a forum about Linux.
dee.

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by dee. »

I simply installed Mint 13, overwriting the Ubuntu 12.04 install, but kept my old /home partition untouched, and it went pretty much flawlessly. Some slight bumps needed to be flattened, and software needed to be reinstalled, but other than that it was very smooth transtition. I even opened my web browser and all the pages I had left open were opened.
mbman88

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by mbman88 »

dee. wrote:I simply installed Mint 13, overwriting the Ubuntu 12.04 install, but kept my old /home partition untouched, and it went pretty much flawlessly. Some slight bumps needed to be flattened, and software needed to be reinstalled, but other than that it was very smooth transtition. I even opened my web browser and all the pages I had left open were opened.
that's certainly motivating. Do you know how we will go about upgrading our Mint versions? Will Mint upgrade directly to the next Mint version..?...or is it still at a stage where we'd have to upgrade to the next Ubuntu and THEN upgrade to the next mint...?

Also.. what you say about re-installing some software.. I hope that doesn't mean that it disappears without you know which software disappeared.. That would make it very difficult to reinstall it if I couldn't remember which program left without notice.
dee.

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by dee. »

mbman88 wrote:
dee. wrote:I simply installed Mint 13, overwriting the Ubuntu 12.04 install, but kept my old /home partition untouched, and it went pretty much flawlessly. Some slight bumps needed to be flattened, and software needed to be reinstalled, but other than that it was very smooth transtition. I even opened my web browser and all the pages I had left open were opened.
that's certainly motivating. Do you know how we will go about upgrading our Mint versions? Will Mint upgrade directly to the next Mint version..?...or is it still at a stage where we'd have to upgrade to the next Ubuntu and THEN upgrade to the next mint...?

Also.. what you say about re-installing some software.. I hope that doesn't mean that it disappears without you know which software disappeared.. That would make it very difficult to reinstall it if I couldn't remember which program left without notice.
No, Ubuntu won't be needed to upgrade, once you pave it over with Mint. If you do it like I did, it overwrites the Ubuntu system with Mint, so that all the system files are overwritten but user data is not. It will practically be Mint, fully and totally, just that you will keep whatever is inside your home directories.

Note however that for this to work, you MUST have separate / and /home partitions. You'd have to have explicitly set it that way when you installed Ubuntu, so if you haven't done that then you cannot use this method.
mbman88

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by mbman88 »

dee. wrote: No, Ubuntu won't be needed to upgrade, once you pave it over with Mint. If you do it like I did, it overwrites the Ubuntu system with Mint, so that all the system files are overwritten but user data is not. It will practically be Mint, fully and totally, just that you will keep whatever is inside your home directories.

Note however that for this to work, you MUST have separate / and /home partitions. You'd have to have explicitly set it that way when you installed Ubuntu, so if you haven't done that then you cannot use this method.
hmmm.. so since I do not have a partitioned /home directory (?), simply upgrading to 12.04, then proceeding to changeover to Mint.. I can risk and/or count-on losing my /home data and settings? (or maybe just settings?). I wonder if this guide that's supposed hyperlink actually explains all of this..
dee.

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by dee. »

mbman88 wrote:
dee. wrote: No, Ubuntu won't be needed to upgrade, once you pave it over with Mint. If you do it like I did, it overwrites the Ubuntu system with Mint, so that all the system files are overwritten but user data is not. It will practically be Mint, fully and totally, just that you will keep whatever is inside your home directories.

Note however that for this to work, you MUST have separate / and /home partitions. You'd have to have explicitly set it that way when you installed Ubuntu, so if you haven't done that then you cannot use this method.
hmmm.. so since I do not have a partitioned /home directory (?), simply upgrading to 12.04, then proceeding to changeover to Mint.. I can risk and/or count-on losing my /home data and settings? (or maybe just settings?). I wonder if this guide that's supposed hyperlink actually explains all of this..
Yes, if you install Mint, you will overwrite your Ubuntu installation. If you don't have a separate /home partition, it will be overwritten along with the rest of your system. You will definitely lose all your data and settings.

What you can do is backup all your data on an external drive, then install Mint, and this time create a /home partition because it's a good practice and helps you in the future - if you ever manage to break your system and need to reinstall, you won't lose your data. Then just copy your data back to your new home directory, but keep the backups.
mbman88

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by mbman88 »

I know this question will be getting slightly off topic.. but it's still related to the subject at hand.. Like most Ubuntu users I have a partition of Windows already on the harddrive.. will Mint install let me create a new partition within the current EXT4 partition? OR will it require the entire harddrive to be formatted first?
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karlchen
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Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by karlchen »

Hello, mbman88.

With respect to the thread topic of "[HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13", your question is absolutely offtopic. :roll:

Nonetheless:
The Ubuntu/Mint installer will give you 3 choices:
  1. Install Ubuntu using the whole disk replacing whatever is on it (guess what the effect will be)
  2. Install alongside Windows. In this case the installer will try to reduce the size of your Windows partition and create Ubuntu/Mint partitions in the freed disk space as appropriate.
  3. Do something else.
Only this 3rd option will allow you to decide yourself exactly what will be done. It will be you who decides how much disk space will be used for Ubuntu/Mint. It will be you who decides how many partitions will be created, their sizes and their mount points. In short words in particular when setting up dual or triple boot systems it is this 3rd option which is the only one that will give you full control and protect you from unpleasant surprises.

With respect to freeing up disk space by reducing the size of a Windows partition:
I would never allow any Linux installer to do so. I would always use Windows disk management in order to shrink a Windows partition. It will warn me if I try to release Windows disk space which is occupied by Windows data.

There are quite a few Howtos and tutorials out there covering the task of creating Windows 7 / Linux dual boot systems. Here is one of these tutorials: Manually Setup A Ubuntu-Windows 7 Dual Boot. Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
Karl
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dee.

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by dee. »

karlchen wrote:With respect to freeing up disk space by reducing the size of a Windows partition:
I would never allow any Linux installer to do so. I would always use Windows disk management in order to shrink a Windows partition. It will warn me if I try to release Windows disk space which is occupied by Windows data.
Funny thing - the one time I've tried resizing partitions in windows, the entire computer crashed, and would no longer boot until I re-formated the hard drive and reinstalled a new windows.

Whereas, every time I've resized a windows partition from within linux (using either the ubuntu installer or gparted), I've had no problems whatsoever.
mbman88

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by mbman88 »

:lol: Windows is like that... Although it sounds like it was a good point that Windows should take care of windows... still, I had to backup my Windows files and instead of using the Windows backup I just Copy Pasted everything since I could actually save MORE data doing that than using Windows Backup which ignores System files (for good reason) but also ignores EXE files... which... I have a lot of, to say the least. Instead I set a restore point and then copy pasted everything I needed. (I backed up my Ubuntu files with Deja Dup)

AS FOR THE MINT INSTALL
I chose option 3 during the Hard Drive part (partition) and kept ALL THE SIZES THE SAME in order to prevent data loss on another partition.. Chose SDA for boot loader (grub) then chose SDA5, which is my ext3 partition from Ubuntu, as the Mint install location, so I set "/" for the filesystem (mount point), ext4 to upgrade to the ext4 format, format option checked... umm I think that's it. The only real loss I sustained here

After it formatted and restarted Mint loaded with no problems. At first I freaked out on Nautilus being s*** but I just had to realize I will need to upgrade to Mint 14 soon.. and then enjoy the wonders of Nemo. Cinnamon works better than I initially thought.. to change the time you just need to click the (Generate your own date formats) option under Date and Time settings... it's a little confusing at first but you'll understand after toying around.
The great thing about Cinnamon is that it comes with all of the media you need (codecs). BUT DON'T FORGET TO UPDATE THE NVIDIA DRIVER... if you have Nvidia. When you get the system up and running REMEMBER TO UPDATE THE SYNAPTIC PACKAGE MANAGER BEFORE POSTING ON FORUMS.. many addresses will be out-of-date upon new install.

Also.. almost all of my old programs do not work anymore (almost) and this includes Google Earth. I kind of figured this would happen though so I'm not upset.. just a forewarning. The main reason I didn't allow any of them to be deleted was so I could use them as a reference to what I had.
rexik

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by rexik »

Hi webslave,

http://jeffshaffner.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/how-to-convert-ubuntu-12-04-to-linux-mint-13/

Is this the right tutorial? I wish to find a way to convert my Ubuntu 12.04 to Mint, as I like Cinnamon more than Unity.

The most important reason why I need to do the conversion is that Ubuntu came preinstalled on this laptop. I have installed other opsyses alongside with Ubuntu here, but the problem with other Linuxes is that the screen backlight won't work. The other Linuxes are Mageia, Manjaro, and Mint. I won't go through all the amount of tweaking I've done to get screen backlight to work, but it still only works on the preinstalled Ubuntu. The laptop is Dell Inspiron 3521, officially this model does not support screen backlight for Linux, and my tweaks have yielded no result.

So, I hope that when I convert Ubuntu to Mint, instead of overinstalling, the screen backlight will continue to work.

Thanks.
Frenzie

Re: [HOW TO] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13

Post by Frenzie »

rexik wrote:Is this the right tutorial? I wish to find a way to convert my Ubuntu 12.04 to Mint, as I like Cinnamon more than Unity.
If it's just for Cinnamon you could potentially also install it in Ubuntu, see e.g. http://www.webupd8.org/2012/02/alternative-cinnamon-ppa-for-ubuntu.html
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