[SOLVED] Preparation for LM 20.2 installation - identify disks

[kwyrky]

Hi,

my current disks setup is as follows, I have two internal disks:
One where I have installed Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia at the moment and another one which serves as a backup disk and gets mounted on boot time automatically.

So now I would like to install Linux Mint 20.2 Uma to exactly the drive where Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia is currently installed while leaving the other backup disk as it is. What steps or strategy should I use to do so? Which info or identifier is unique to the drives and how would I find out? Will it be possible to easily compare during the installation phase of Linux Mint 20.2 Uma?

[GELvdH]

Boot with your installation media, when you come to the opening screen go to update manager, edit you should see a line with "update to LM 20.2", select that and follow the instructions.

[Larry78723]

@GELvdH - He's coming from 19.3, there is no update option.

@kwyrky - Please post the results of the following command run in a full screen terminal:

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lsblk -fi

[GELvdH]

Sorry, it's been a while since I ran 19.3.

[AndyMH]

When you install select the 'something else' option, the next screen shows all your drives and partitions. You can point at your existing / partition and tell the installer to reuse it for / and reformat it. If you have a separate /home partition you can tell the installer to use that as /home and NOT reformat it.

You will need to re-install any software you have installed. If you don't have a separate /home partition, copy the contents of /home off to an external drive first and copy it back once you have installed.

[kwyrky]

@Larry78723

I am pretty sure /dev/sda (860 EVO 1TB) is my backup drive. I have a fully encrypted system, I forgot to mention in the first post. The backup disk gets unlocked by a keyfile when I boot into Linux Mint 19.3. I did the setup but it has been a while and I forgot some details maybe. If I am right I should probably change the name for the unencrypted partition on that device to match the logical device name, so that it would be named sda1_crypt (sda) instead of sdb1_crypt. But that is just a name and should not be relevant at the moment I guess.

Code: Select all

NAME                  FSTYPE      LABEL       UUID                                   MOUNTPOINT
sda                   crypto_LUKS             08f08b2f-1908-4f09-87eb-060bf40a8da7   
`-sdb1_crypt          ext4        860 EVO 1TB 1d151991-76df-4ef9-93d1-2ae12e90ce34   /media/ea/860 EVO 1TB
nvme0n1                                                                              
|-nvme0n1p1           vfat                    26D1-67DD                              /boot/efi
|-nvme0n1p2           ext4                    152d70fc-ff74-499a-8484-1c09d7f438e2   /boot
`-nvme0n1p3           crypto_LUKS             33669f7d-40b0-4c43-8f0b-cee62a8db369   
  `-sda3_crypt        LVM2_member             cAjlXy-kCNJ-8UsG-m1Lb-vNLm-0sJH-CcoOLD 
    |-mint--vg-root   ext4                    2eed39de-ee35-4324-825f-c9af44129b9a   /
    `-mint--vg-swap_1 swap                    8dd896e7-2814-451c-bc8a-61e2e58dbece   [SWAP]

[Larry78723]

You are correct, sda is your backup drive. I can't help further because I know nothing about encryption.

[kwyrky]

@AndyMH

Made two screenshots after booting from a live USB with LM 20.2 while testing my options during the installation phase. Sorry for not mentioning that I have a fully encrypted system. I think thats why it says that no installation was found and limits the options. Also the image quality inline is for some reason not very good but when clicking the image it should get better at least on my side this works.

[AndyMH]

Not a fan of full disk encryption, don't use it and can't offer any advice. You are adding a layer of complexity that if you break it can be impossible to get back = lose your data. Anyway, for most users 99% of the files are not sensitive. For what I consider sensitive I use veracrypt containers (a large file) which when mounted appears as another device in your file manager. If I break something, it is repairable. If I forget the veracrypt password then I lose anything in the container, but I've minimised the risk.

[kwyrky]

I tried VeraCrypt but I like luks more since Linux Mint will automatically ask me to enter the password when I connect an (luks) encrypted device. I get your point and you are right, it adds a lot of complexity and not sure if it is worth it. But since I often take my notebooks / pcs with me while travelling I like to be safe and so I chose the option where everything will get encrypted. I have enough backups so I would not loose all data but it might get time consuming and inconvenient restoring everything not (semi)automatically.

[GELvdH]

I don't know how many systems you have but maybe a cloud system would be of use to you. I have 3 systems and one is a laptop, when we travel I take the laptop of course, I use MEGA.nz cloud for all of my data and it is synced to all three systems so even if I loose one system I still have everything on the cloud.

[kwyrky]

Thanks for the tipp maybe that is a good idea. I installed LM 20.2 and at some point I could choose the target device. So the second device has not been touched. Thanks for the help.