re-install

[Ash Wyllie]

On Mon, 2013-03-18 at 12:22 +0000, Liam Proven wrote: 
> On 18 March 2013 12:12, Ash Wyllie <ashwmls at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2013-03-18 at 11:54 +0000, Liam Proven wrote:
> >> On 18 March 2013 11:39, Ash Wyllie <ashwmls at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > I've just re-installed Ubuntu. Before I started I backed up /home/user
> >> > to an external drive. I then copied the backup to /home on the new
> >> > system.
> >> >
> >> > But evolution and fstop (and others?) behave as if it is a new
> >> > installation and don't see the data in .evolution and Pictures/Photos.
> >> >
> >> > Is there a way to force these programs to recognize okd data in this
> >> > situation?
> >>
> >> Was /home a separate partition?
> >
> > /home is now a separate partition, to make it easier if I ever have to
> > do this again.
> 
> OK.
> 
> So what you would have needed to do is this:
> 
> [1] Use a LiveCD or something to partition your drive, with separate
> partitions for /, /home and swap (plus any others for Windows or
> whatever)
> 
> [2] Format them all
> 
> [3] Restore the contents of your old /home *directory* into your new
> /home *filesystem*
> 
> _then_
> 
> [4] Reinstall Ubuntu and tell it to use /dev/sda(whatever) as /home
> and not to format it
> 
It's been a busy couple of days.

What I did Sunday morning was to setup /, /home and swap (I did not
touch  the existing 40GB windows 7 stuff).

/ is /dev/sda5
swap is /dev/sda6
/home is /dev/sda7

I installed 10.04 _then_ copied /home/diane. Should I do it the other
way around?

> Also, the user numbers need to match. The nice friendly names are just
> a convenient alias, like www.google.com is just a friendly alias to
> 173.194.67.103 provided by DNS.
> 
> If you type
> 
> cat /etc/passwd
> 
> ... then you'll see the actual numbers. I am the only user on my
> system so my user number is 1000 in group 1000:
> 
I get diane:x1000:1000:... 

The old installation was a single user system, as is this one. 

Whether the old number was the same as this one, I don't know. Is there
a way to find out?

> lproven:x:1000:1000:Liam Proven,,,:/home/lproven:/bin/bash
> 
> That's what matters most: my files are owned by user [1000:1000] who
> happens to be referred to by the name "lproven".
> 
> If you were using the a/c created second on your old installation, you
> might be user [1001] in group [1000], that is, [1001,1000]:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_identifier
> 
> /Both/ the name /and/ the user number need to match.
> 
> But if you only ever have 1 account, this probably already does, so it
> won't matter.
> 
> The greater question being, did you follow the order of the sequence
> above? Restore /home *before* reinstalling?
> 
> --
> Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
> Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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> Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884
>