[ubuntu-uk] Pasting home directory into new and version upgrade installs?

[Liam Proven]

On 17 September 2010 21:11, alan c <aeclist at candt.waitrose.com> wrote:
> I have a friend with Ubuntu 9.04 and I will do a version upgrade for
> them soon. One option is to version upgrade online to 9.10 and then,
> at another convenient future date,  version upgrade to 10.04 LTS,
> which they will stay with for a longer time.
>
> Another option is to do a clean reinstall of Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS now,
> and then re-configure to match the user's apps and data.
>
> One suggestion I have received is, that after a clean reinstall of
> 10.04.1, I could then replace the clean /home/username directory with
> the copy of the directory from the user's 9.04 which I would have
> created earlier in careful backups.
>
> Thinking of this last option, I find a number of questions come to mind.
> What is the effect of brutally just replacing /home/username from an
> earlier version, possibly two or so versions old? The user has one app
> for example, Digikam (in Ubuntu) which they regularly use, and this I
> guess uses a number of kde libraries whatever.  I cannot help
> wondering what sort of clean up  (or chaos) I might be faced with,
> perhaps out of my depth too, by following this latter approach.
>
> I would welcome comments here.

Get them onto the LTS release *now* and then you can safely leave 'em
there 'til 2012. *Don't* put them onto 9.10, it's already obsolescent.

Me, personally, I'd say wipe & reload. It's easier than doing 9.04 ->
9.10 followed by 9.10 -> 10.04.

Just move /home into a separate filesystem, if it isn't already, make
a note of any apps and config you need, then reformat / and install
10.04 into it. Let the install procedure pick up the existing
/home/$username folder - it should sort things out for you. If
possible, avoid replacing it later; have it there, /in situ/, first.

-- 
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