Upgrading 12.04 to 13.04

[Nicholas Skaggs]

On 03/13/2013 03:03 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> 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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Scott is correct here, in that as long as you select the upgrade or 
re-install option in ubiquity it will overwrite only the system files.. 
that is, nothing that is found in /home. Since the disk itself isn't 
formatted when you do this, your data will be safe. If you create a user 
that matches your current account name, the /home/user folder will match 
and your first login will be greeted by your old data. That said, 
personally I'm a big advocate of a /home partition (gives you more 
control in multi-boot situations), but not of the default suggestion of 
/swap partitions (swap files only please, and only if needed!).. To each 
there own :-)

Nicholas
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