[ubuntu-uk] Replacing Linux Mint 13 with Ubuntu 12.04

[Colin Law]

On 3 July 2012 02:21, Daniel Case <danielcase10 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is your /home directory on another partition or the same as the Mint
> system? Either way, take a backup somewhere to be sure nothing happens
> (I've had my power go out in the middle of an install before... it
> happens!)
>
> If your /home is separate, it should be safe, if not... Ubuntu will
> probably wipe it.

If /home is not in a separate partition then when installing ubuntu,
if you select the "Something Else" option in the installer and then
select the existing root partition to install into but do /not/ select
the Format option for that partition then Ubuntu should install into
that partition but should leave /home unaffected.  The proviso to this
is that I have never tried it installing on top of a Mint partition,
but I don't know of any reason why that should make a difference.  My
recommendation would therefore be to make sure that your backups are
up to date (and check that any important data is actually there in the
backup, preferably by trying to restore it somewhere) and then go for
it.

Another proviso is that if you leave /home as it is then there may, or
may not, be conflicts between what Ubuntu expects to see there and
what Mint has left there.  Again I don't know of any specific issues,
but I do not know that there are none.  If the worst comes to the
worst you have your backups and can do a full Ubuntu install and then
restore the data.  All you have lost is some time.

Colin

>
> On 2 July 2012 22:13, Rob Beard <rob at esdelle.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 02/07/12 21:48, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
>>>
>>> If I want to replace Linux Mint 13 with Ubuntu 12.04, will it just be a
>>> case of installing over the top, and if so will that affect my Home
>>> directory at all?
>>> In other words if I do this will my Home directory stay intact or do I
>>> need to back it up then restore after installation of Ubuntu?
>>>
>> I gather that Mint has it's own customisations, so I guess it depends if the
>> installer wipes everything other than everything in /home.
>>
>> If in doubt, boot from a live CD/DVD and backup your home directory
>> somewhere.  It's better to have a backup that you can copy back over if it
>> all goes wrong. :-)
>>
>> Rob
>>
>>
>>
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>
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