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

[alan c]

On 18/09/10 02:00, Liam Proven wrote:
> 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.

I do not understand the following very well, sorry. I have lots of 
'new install' experiences but have never been adventurous at this stage

> 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.

' move /home into a separate filesystem'
copy and paste ok? Is this 'separate filesystem' typically a separate 
independent partition such as a backup disk or backup partition? Or is 
the 'separate filesystem intended maybe to be the target partition for 
the new install though? Not clear at all about this.

Or would I be using the Install Partitioning option 'manual' where I 
nominate the directories  and check off which should or should not  be 
formatted?

tia
-- 
alan cocks
Ubuntu user