Moving from 10.04 to 12.04

[Jim Byrnes]

On 09/09/2012 11:01 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 9 September 2012 16:49, Jim Byrnes <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> I know from reading your posts in the past you know way more than I do, but
>> I don't agree here.  Maybe I didn't make my intent clear.  The two drives
>> will /never/ be hooked up at the same time.  The old HD will only be a
>> fallback if for some reason I can't get everything working on the new
>> install.
>
> OK, that's fine. It's your PC! Do what you like! :¬) But one question
> - how are you going to transfer all your files & data across from old
> to new disk?

As I mention when I started this thread I would transfer them to my 
laptop and then back to the new HD.  Thinking about my response I 
realized that I have an external USB HD that I use for regular back ups 
so they would be available there also.

>> So are you saying here that my calculation method is correct, but I could
>> reclaim a lot of space by doing what you outline above. In that case I
>> should do the clean up and then redo the calculation.
>
> If you like, yes. I am not sure there is much to be availed from it,
> but if you want to, knock yourself out. :¬)
>
> I don't know this, but I suspect something like it might be the case:
> if you have a big root FS, then Ubuntu won't bother to be very
> diligent about cleaning up package caches and so on. It might only
> take the time to clear down caches, possibly to purge old logfiles and
> so on once free space on the volume drops to a certain percentage or
> something. So if you have a relatively huge filesystem, it will let
> stuff mount up; if you have a smaller one, it will purge caches & logs
> more often to ensure that the drive never gets below 25% full or
> something.
>
> This is pure supposition, I emphasise.
>
> But in terms of space for root - a full install of Ubuntu is only a
> few gig. Add in all the proprietary extras and so on and it's still
> not much bigger than that. You can fit a working, complete,
> un-pared-down install into 4GB. 8GB will be less than 50% used when
> new. 16GB will be under 25% used when new, full updated & with a few
> extra apps added - I routinely add things like Pidgin, Synaptic,
> Google Chrome, a few indicators, commonly VirtualBox and so on.
>
> 16GB is quite generous and will normally go 75% unused. 32GB is
> extremely generous and will typically go about 85-90% unused. More
> than that is just throwing disk space away, but hey, if you have it,
> there is nothing to stop you throwing it away.
>
> My server machines (no GUI etc.) typically run off 8GB drives or
> partitions and have tons of room to spare.
>
>

All the numbers you state above just make me more than ever want to know 
if the assumptions I made in calculating what the size of my / partition 
would be if I had a separate /home partition on my present HD. I 
calculated it to be 41GB which seemed high compared to what I saw on the 
web and certainly is when looking at your numbers.  So far no one has 
said "Hey Jim your numbers are way off because..."

Regards,  Jim