New install of Mint based on existing implementation [Solved]

[peterw19]

Hello, I now have Mint 20.2 running and configured as I like it on my current computer, dual booted with Windows. I am planning to replace this computer and the replacement will only have Linux. It will be delivered with Windows, which I plan to remove. What is the best way to achieve this?

Can I wipe the new disk and restore / and /home from my existing Foxclone backups? If I do this what happens about Grub and boot partitions? And how do I 'wipe' the disk? What about partition tables?

Or do a fresh install of Linux with partitions appropriately sized and then restore the Foxclone backups on top of these.

Another option is to add a second disk (which may be necessary since the disk as delivered may be too small for / and /home) - any opinions/experiences of SSD USB disks, for performance and reliability compared to USB HDDs (my experience of the latter is that they are not great. Maybe I've been unlucky)? Any issues moving /home to the second disk?

Do I really need 100Gb for Mint with /Home in a separate partition? At the moment it's running pretty well with 40Gb.

(This question is partly prompted by a response in another thread - ask advice before you do something rather than ask for help getting out of a mess you have created )

Thanks for any suggestions

[Hoser Rob]

It's be best to just do a clean reinstall, the config will probably be different, and you'll save the time of figuring how to do it otherwise.

[AndyMH]

Can I wipe the new disk and restore / and /home from my existing Foxclone backups? If I do this what happens about Grub and boot partitions? And how do I 'wipe' the disk? What about partition tables?

You don't even need to wipe the new drive, doing a 'clone from file' with foxclone will overwrite whatever was there before. You don't need to worry about grub or partition tables, foxclone takes care of that.

The only caveats or things that might trip you up:

• if the new drive is smaller than the old you will need to shrink the partitions on your old drive to fit - this is explained in the user guide.

• make sure you have a full image backup before you start.

• take an image backup of the new drive in the new computer before you wipe it - just in case.

• make sure both machines boot in the same mode, e.g. both legacy boot or both UEFI boot. If not you will need to change the boot mode in BIOS on the new machine to match the old.

• you may run into trouble with proprietary drivers, e.g. nvidia installed on the current PC, not in the new one, which may mean you need to boot in compatibility mode first to sort them out.

Do I really need 100Gb for Mint with /Home in a separate partition? At the moment it's running pretty well with 40Gb.

No, my / partition is 34GB, 20GB used.

Can't comment on USB SSDs, don't have any. Assuming the new PC is a laptop there maybe other options for fitting a second drive, e.g. M.2, replace the DVD drive with a caddy, or simply buy a bigger drive.

[peterw19]

Hi AndyMH, many thanks for your comprehensive reply. Apologies for not responding sooner, but I have been working out the best approach and ordering a new laptop (actually a not-new T430). I've decided to get a 1Tb SATA SSD for this. I've also been studying the (excellent) documentation for Foxclone. The only issue with your solution is that I don't want to clone my existing disk exactly. I want to lose all the Windows partitions and just have a Linux boot option. I'm not sure that I can do a selective 'clone' with Foxclone. My current disk config is below. I only want to copy the 2 Linux partitions, plus Music and Archive. In time I will convert the latter two to EXT4 and add them to an expanded /Home, making more efficient use of the space, less management effort etc.

If I can't do the job with Foxclone would it make sense to do a fresh install from my pen drive, create a new / partition of 40Gb,and a /Home of 240Gb? Can I then restore the / partition from a Timeshift backup, either on the new running system or while running off the pen drive, and restore /Home from a BackinTime backup?

[AndyMH]

...ordering a new laptop (actually a not-new T430).

A T430 - an excellent choice! I've got four of them , all bought second-hand. I suggest you:

• read this https://medium.com/@n4ru/the-definitive ... ff3f6a8e2e. The definitive guide to what you can do with one. I've done most of them.

• join the thinkpad forum, https://forum.thinkpads.com/. Not as active as this forum, but still a useful source of advice/information.

• download the hardware reference manual, https://thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hmm_p ... 304_03.pdf. This assumes you have got a T430 not a T430S (slimline version). Tells you how to replace every part. Parts are cheap on ebay.

It also guarantees that foxclone will run on it - it was developed on a T430.

Mine spend most of their lives sat in a docking station (£10 on ebay) driving an external ultrawide monitor with a wireless mouse and keyboard. 8GB RAM is more than adequate for mint, although two have 16GB. In all of them I've replaced the DVD drive with a caddy + 2TB HDD, this is used for backup (and nothing else - timeshift/backintime/foxclone). The stock i5-3320M will run cinnamon fine although in two I've replaced it with an i7-3632QM (runs about 10C hotter). My 'development' T430 runs mint off a 256GB mSATA SSD (it is only a sata2 interface so slower than the main bay & ultrabay = sata3). The main bay has a 240GB SSD with 'victim' OSes used for testing foxclone. Another one has a WAN card instead of an mSATA drive (the slot for the SIM card is in the battery compartment). Note bluetooth was an option, three of mine have it, one didn't. Easiest and cheapest solution was buy a usb bluetooth dongle.

With regard to foxclone, you could do a backup of your existing drive excluding sda2 and sda3. Then clone this to the new drive*. Or clone 'drive to drive' using a usb/sata adapter. Then use gparted to delete sda2 & 3 on the new drive (from a backup they will show up, but with errors) and move/resize the other partitions to use the space as required. This will take some time as you have +600GB of data to move around. I have used foxclone to clone a 1TB HDD that was nearly full (it was my backup drive, replaced with a 2TB drive). It took several hours. When you have mint up and running a sudo update-grub should remove the existing win entry from the grub menu. You are booting in UEFI mode so you will need to delete the windows folder in the EFI partition.

The fresh install plus timeshift and backintime should work as well, so you have choices.

EDIT - thinking about it, a fresh install is probably quicker.

• Clone drive to drive - 632GiB to transfer then 575GiB to move = 1207GiB.

• Clone from backup - 575GiB to backup, then restore, then move = 1725GiB.

• Fresh install - assuming you already have timeshift/backintime backups of all partitions, 575GiB to restore. If Music and Archives are not backed up, I would rsync the contents across from old drive to new drive using a sata/usb adapter.

* should work, but I've not tried this.

[peterw19]

Many thanks again Andy, for your suggestions and the references for the T430. I'll give this some more thought so I can optimise the process.

(The backup time is an issue on my current computer. The USB3 port has died, so I have to use USB2, so everything takes forever! One of the reasons for replacing it. )

I like the idea of a big disk in the caddy for backups. I'll look at that when funds allow.

[AndyMH]

Just updated my previous, think fresh install will be quicker

[peterw19]

Thanks for the update. I was coming to a similar conclusion from a slightly different perspective. I have about a week before the new computer arrives, so plently of time to RSYNC Music and Archives onto a USB disk. They are relatively static so keeping them up to date is not an issue. Then all I'm faced with is a fresh install (easy, low risk), restoring from Timeshift and BackinTime (also on the USB disk), then another RSYNC (at USB3 speeds) for the remaining partitions. Thanks again for all your suggestions - I'll post here when the job is done - could be a couple of weeks.

[BrandNewUser]

It's be best to just do a clean reinstall, the config will probably be different, and you'll save the time of figuring how to do it otherwise.

It will be much faster and easier to reformat.

[peterw19]

New computer has arrived and is working ok. I'd like to keep it that way...... IT comes with Windows pre-installed

I've installed Mint as per discussion above - from the ISO, as dual boot. I'm now setting up the Timeshift restore from my old, configured system. But I notice in the huge list of files being restored there are things like /boot/grub/..... and /boot/EFI/Microsoft...... Do I really want to restore these? If not is there an easy way to select what to exclude? I don't really want to wade through a list of 191,000 files.

Thanks

Edit - actually the list may not be as fearsome as it looks. It can be boiled down to
/boot/....... /boot/efi /etc/alternative/.... /usr/....... /var/........ and maybe one or two others I may have missed. But these cover the vast majority.

Do the Filters in Settings apply to a restore as well as a backup? This should make it east to exclude anything dangerous once I can identify them.

[mikeflan]

I've installed Mint as per discussion above - from the ISO, as dual boot. I'm now setting up the Timeshift restore from my old, configured system.

I'm trying to figure out what the 2nd sentence means. Does that mean to plan to restore your old system snapshot to the new computer? If so, I'm wondering if taking a full disk image should be done before trying the TS restore.Personally I would have taken a full disk image even before installing LM, but afterwards is OK too.

My understanding is the TS filters are for TAKING the snapshot, and one cannot easily exclude parts of an already created snapshot before restoring. If I am right, then just give it a go after taking the full disk image.

[peterw19]

Hi Mikeflan, thanks for this information. I have plenty of backups - including |Foxclone. So if it does all go pearshaped I can recover. The new computer is getting a brand new disk next week - for Linux only. Hopefully migrating to that will be less problematic.

[peterw19]

This is turning into a disaster.....

Earlier I wrote...
'But I notice in the huge list of files being restored there are things like /boot/grub/..... and /boot/EFI/Microsoft...... Do I really want to restore these? '

Not having received a reassuring answer (or otherwise) I decided to use Foxclone. I deleted the partitions at the top of the source disk and took a backup of the EFI partition, Linux / and /home. Trying to do a clone from file to the new, blank disk and the clone seems to have hung saying 'Restoring partition table' and 'calculating bitmap, please wait...'. I've been waiting several minutes and it loos as if it's not doing anything. Can anyone help? What should I try next?

Today is turning into an 'I hate technology' day.

[AndyMH]

Just yesterday I replaced the 240GB mSATA SSD in one of my T430's (used for foxclone development) with a 480GB mSATA SSD. I took a full backup of the existing drive with foxclone. Before I did the clone I thought I had better check the new drive is good, so used gparted to stick a new partition table on it and then an ext4 partition. Copied a couple of random files to it - so the drive is good (I have had new drives dead on arrival). Then I did a 'clone from file', rebooted, it worked. Booted back into the foxclone iso and used gparted to extend my home partition to use all the drive and all was good.

So two thoughts:

• Did you do a full backup - foxclone might be trying to restore a partition you didn't backup. I'd have to check the code to see what it does, suspect it probably doesn't check*. I think on the confirm window it tells you what it is going to restore - does the list include partitions you did not backup?

• Is the new drive good - do what I did to check.

* Doesn't help you, half-way through a complete rewrite of foxclone. The new version will warn you if the backup is incomplete when you use it to clone.

[peterw19]

Hi I didnt back up the Windows reserved or the Windows partition as I dont want them restored. Should I do a full backup with these, restore them and then delete them when I'm finished? It looks as if I may have misinterpreted your earlier post 'With regard to foxclone, you could do a backup of your existing drive excluding sda2 and sda3'

I have a GParted of the new disk which lists all these partitions including MS reserved, and Windows system with 'file system unknown'. Has it restored the partition table, but then cant carry on? It should have restored EFI (?) but that says unknown file system - should be FAT32?

Edit: I tried your suggestion to test the new drive. Created a new partiotion no problem. When I go into File Manager from Foxclone I can't copy into the new partition and when I right click the create folder and create document options are greyed out, as if it's read-only.

More edit - looks like permissions - open as root fixed it.

[AndyMH]

Hi I didnt back up the Windows reserved or the Windows partition as I dont want them restored. Should I do a full backup with these, restore them and then delete them when I'm finished? It looks as if I may have misinterpreted your earlier post 'With regard to foxclone, you could do a backup of your existing drive excluding sda2 and sda3'

Yes, do a full backup and then sort it out what you don't want after. And yes it will take longer backing up those GB of used space in the unwanted win partition . Can't remember if I caveated the 'excluding sda2 and sda3', if not should have, apologies. It is not something I have done myself. On a clone I've always done a full backup of the source drive.

[peterw19]

Thanks Andy. I think you did caveat the suggestion to drop the Windows partitions...... can't win them all!
I''ll try again with a fresh, full backup. Will take ages (groan...) as this computer only has USB2.
Any comments on the question regatrding doing a restore with Timeshift - looks as if it restores a lot of 'boot' files which might not be what you want if you're installing from scratch on a blank disk. For now I'll stick with Foxclone.
Thanks again.

[Mintmann]

Windows 10 allows the de-registration of the key, so it can be used again on another computer.
Hence you don't have to pay for Windows 10 again when getting a new computer or building one.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ering-keys

[AndyMH]

Suspect this might work for a retail licence, I would be surprised if it works with OEM or volume licences.

[AndyMH]

Any comments on the question regatrding doing a restore with Timeshift - looks as if it restores a lot of 'boot' files which might not be what you want if you're installing from scratch on a blank disk. For now I'll stick with Foxclone.

I've only used timeshift in anger a while back and that was yo-yoing between LM19.0 and LM19.1. Not tried using it to restore to a new drive with a new install of mint, so don't know what problems you might run into. One will be fstab, new install points at your partitions by UUID, timeshift restore overwriting fstab with a version pointing at the wrong UUIDs. That's only half the problem, by default it doesn't do home, fortunately easy to solve. I use backintime for home and a restore to a different home should be fine.