(SOLVED) How do i migrate from LM 20.3 to LM 21 on new Nvme SSD? - Ended up cloning the LM20.3

[Makarios]

Hi All

My existing Nvme SSD is starting to show a decline when I test it with Hard disk Sentinel, And I have not yet upgraded to 21 as I was waiting for the new Nvme,

I have now bought a new Nvme for my machine and want to do a clean install of LM 21 on it.

Then I want to migrate my installed software etc from the old drive to the new

Any guides or step by step procedures to do this..

I don't want to clone the drive or upgrade the running LM20.3 for the following reasons:

1. My current Nvme was installed new on LM 18 and upgraded as time went on to 20.3.

2. The Nvme in 1. was first in my Hp Zbook when I did the original install and when I bought a desktop pc, I simply moved the Nvme with LM on from the laptop to the Desktop pc. Worked like a charm....LMint is TOPS!!!. Only needed to install the graphics card driver and everything else just kept on working.

3. My thought is that a clean install should clear out any remaining inconsistencies between the laptop and desktop pc. When I boot up or shut down, i have a few messages flashing about hardware not found but it closes and boots up fine.

4, Over time I have tested various software packages and some i have uninstalled and others not, so a clean install will allow me to only migrate what I am actually using.

5. I use the following software all the time:

a) Thunderbird: I am ok with moving then profile of mozilla

b) Firefox - same as above

c) Brave browser

d) Oracle Virtual Version 6.1.34 r150636 (Qt5.12. - original not forked - This is critical for my business support of Windows based Accounting software support.

e) Telegram desktop

f) Whatsapp - - Currently in browser as the desktop version was not updating well at some point. I have been unsuccessful to do web apps on 20.3 for my Whatsap and youtube uses. Hopefully LM21 will be better

g) Kodi 19.4 Matrix

There are a few others like vlc and deluge and Hypnotix etx and I LOVE Plank for the dock and looks of it..

So I will be inserting the new Nvme and do a clean LM 21 install form live USB on it and have the old NVM in a usb hard drive casing that I can insert so as to move/copy my data and programs from it.

I have 500GB (Nvme) disk as my primary boot disk and home directories etc, with a 2nd 1TB SSD for my Virtualbox application, a 2TB for my backups and DATA, a 2 TB for my media ( movies and tvseries)

Im sure the install will just pick up the onboard drives automatically.

I am concerned with the process of migrating my software and any pointers will be appreciated

thanx in advance for any feedback

[Doruletz]

Moving your data is OK, as for the programs, as you call them, or apps, not OK
I highly recommend re-installing any and all programs-apps fresh onto the new LM 21 installation, and from its repositories.
Main reason being that some programs-apps use newer versions of themselves as well as newer versions of any dependencies in a newer Distro version.
Also, how are you gonna move an already installed app and all its dependencies from one OS to another???

As for your storage only NVMe drives, YES, the new install will be able to use them.
Best to specify their usage and mount points during the install, that way they will be mounted automatically each time you boot.
Or you can add them manually into your fstab file after the install, if that's easier for you.

Good luck

[RIH]

In your existing Mint 20.3 installation you need to run the Backup Tool.
There are 2 parts to it - Data & Applications.

Data copies your existing /Home directory, but you have to select Copy Hidden Files if you want configuration files as well.
This will produce quite a large file, which you can then 'Restore' using the Backup Tool in your new Mint 21 installation.

Applications produces a small text file that lists all the Applications that you have on your Mint 20.3 installation.
Using Restore in the Backup Tool in your new Mint 21 installation will automatically attempt to install all your Mint 20.3 Applications on your new installation.
There are some caveats to a complete Application restore.
1. The Application must exist in the Mint 21 repositories.
2. You must have originally installed the Application from the Mint 20.x repositories.
For example. If you install Calibre from the owners website then Backup Tool will not install it on Restore even though a copy of Calibre exists in the Mint 21 repositories.
The Backup Tool does give you a pretty clear list of what Applications were in your list that have not been installed to enable you to re-install manually.

Personally, I also take a screen shot of my Fonts & Themes screens so I can ensure those remain as I like as well..

All Browsers allow a user to download settings like Favourites, Passwords etc. It is certainly worth doing that & re-importing them into your new install.

Finally, before you start..... Make a copy of any personal data that is on your old disk that is important to you.
Use something like FreeFileSync or Lucky Backup or BackInTime.
That should ensure that whatever happens you will have what is important to you if you need to start from scratch if an unforeseen disaster hits!!

[Makarios]

Thanx for the advice.

One thing I have picked up in my research on this project is that in my original install of linux mint I could have done better.

I refer to the fact that I never made different partitions for my / and Home and Swap,

It seems if I have a separate partition for /home, it could be as simple as creating the partitions on the new Nvme SSD and doing a new install on the New Nvme SSD and copying the /home partition over from the old to the new Nvme with a live LM?

Bear in mind that I can simply remove my Nvme from the computer ( and use it as my backup by inserting it in a usb Case), Then insert the new Nvme and format and create my partitions(correctly this time) then do a clean install on the new Nvme and copy my \home folder to the new partition on the new Nvme ( with a live session) and then reboot...

I am leaning to wards doing this ALL on 20.3 first and then doing the upgrade to 21? Any thoughts on this?

[RIH]

Your choice about separate partitions - there are plusses and minuses to both methods.
You don't need a swap partition though, Mint will automatically use a swap file if you don't have a partition.
The minus on using separate partitions for root & Home is really space allocation.
How much do you give to root?
Too little & you quickly run into booting issues. Too much is just wasted unused space.
If you have plenty of space on your new disk, then probably not an issue.

I am a fan of Virtual machines - VirtualBox in particular.
Before I move to a new Mint variant I fire it up as a virtualbox guest & then 'play' at doing my upgrade.
I then know exactly what to expect when I change my daily driver.
If you don't have any desire to use virtual machines then this is probably not for you. In that case, your idea of not moving immediately to Mint 21 sounds like a good one to me. After all, it is a few years before you have to move from 20.3 & you are, obviously, pretty satisfied with it.
If, after the recreation, you are happy with the process then you have the choice of remaining with 20.3 or moving on to 21 now..

[Makarios]

Because I have enough other drives, Partitioning the primary drive will not be a problem space whise.

I was thinking As far as the SWAP partition goes, we have regular power outages in South Africa, and my current installation does not like coming out of sleep well. I have crashes, and I thought having a dedicated swap partition of say 50GB would be beneficial? I have 32GB ram on my machine

I love Virtual box......I use it daily as part of my support of the windows based accounting software (Omni Accounts) i do in my Business..

Here is what I am thinking as the process going forward.

remove then old Nvme.

Install and partition the new 500gb Nvme. ( (500mb) |, (+/-449gb) \home (50gb) \ swap

then do a clean new install 20.3 on this new Nvme

Then I insert my old Nvme in a disk holder and connect to usb, and copy my old \home folder to the new home partition over writing all in the new \home partition with the content of my old \home folder?

[Makarios]

Ok,

New curveball in this process..

My old Nvme is 512gb ( only 300 i used) But the new one is only 500Gb

clonezilla does not want to clone it..

Any suggestions??

[AndyMH]

You will have to shrink the last partition on the drive so it ends at < 500GB. You might find foxclone more user friendly than clonezilla, but same constraint.

But if you are doing a fresh install, why bother?

Mint's backup tool will create a tarball (.tar.gz, a compressed archive) of your current home folder (think it stores the tarball in your documents folder). Copy off to an external drive and you can then restore to LM21 once installed. If you take a 'system' backup with the mint backup tool it creates a text file (also saves in your documents folder) which can be used to restore your software.

Note - the system backup has limitations, it will not do software from external sources, e.g. additional repositories, ppas, deb files or stuff compiled from source and just because some software is in the repos for LM20 does not guarantee it will be in the repos for LM21.

[Makarios]

I am not really looking forward to a fresh install as I have 2 years of tweaking to my current install.

will keep that as last resort.

I am trying to clone first..

I have reduced the 2nd partition on the source nvme by 40/50db...

will now attempt cloning the partitions one by one

[Makarios]

Ok so it is done!

I remained on 20.3 and cloned then drive, I will be upgrading to 21 as the next step.

Here is the process I followed.

I needed to boot up with a live Linux min usb.

Then I used Gparted to reduce the size of the Filesystem partition by about 30GB until it is smaller than the 500Gb available on the new Nvme.

I then booted back up with the old Nvme to ensure all was well..

Thereafter I used CloneZilla, with advanced options and selected this option:

For the rest of the clonezila options I just accepted the defaults.

When all was done , I swapped then 2 Nvme's in the machine and booted up like normal.

So far it seems all is running perfectly.

This makes my issue SOLVED. Thanx for everyone's input.