Upgrading 12.04 to 13.04

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, March 13, 2013 10:21:18 PM Ali Linx wrote:
> > 2- If you don't have /home partition, you will lose your settings, etc
> > (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken).
> > 
> > 
> > You are mistaken.
> > I have systems that have been upgraded to 12.04 from as far back as 7.10.
> > There's really almost never a reason to reinstall.
> 
> Hmm, then are you saying this is wrong?
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving
> 
> Setting up /home on a separate partition is beneficial because your
> > settings, files, and desktop will be maintained if you upgrade,
> > (re)install
> > Ubuntu or another distro. This works because /home has a subdirectory for
> > each user's settings and files which contain all the data & settings of
> > that user. Telling Ubuntu to use an existing home partition can be done by
> > selecting "Manual Partitioning" during the installation of Ubuntu and
> > specifying that you want your home partitions mount point to be /home,
> > *ensure you mark your /home partition not be formatted in the process*.
> > You should also make sure the usernames you enter for accounts during
> > installation match usernames that existed in a previous installation.
> 
> From my understanding, having /home will help you to upgrade smoothly
> without losing anything :)
> If you don't have /home, I'm not 100% sure what could happen.
> 
> That was my point :)

Yes.  It's wrong.  Even if you reinstall Ubuntu, it will recognize and 
preserve and existing home directory.  The one case where that is correct is 
if you install a different distro.  There are reasons why you might want /home 
on a different partition, but they are mostly, IMO, obsolete.  There is zero 
need to put /home in a separate partition for upgradeability.

Scott K

> On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 6:18 PM, Scott Kitterman 
<ubuntu at kitterman.com>wrote:
> > On Wednesday, March 13, 2013 05:50:12 PM Ali Linx wrote:
> > ...
> > 
> > > 2- If you don't have /home partition, you will lose your settings, etc
> > > (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken).
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > You are mistaken.
> > 
> > I have systems that have been upgraded to 12.04 from as far back as 7.10.
> > There's really almost never a reason to reinstall.
> > 
> > Also, unless someone mails you the installation media, you'll have to
> > download
> > that, so reinstalling will not save bandwidth.  It's also not faster if
> > you
> > include the time needed to download the installation media.
> > 
> > Scott K
> > 
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