[ SOLVED ] Mount new ~ to old one in another partition

[kpanic]

Ooops! Actually @m654321 and @DeepThought gave better instructions.
Better NOT copy the old configuration files and directories, which usually begin with a dot,
like for example the directory ~/.synaptic

So, better just copy (or link) the normal directories like ~/Documents, ~/Music and so on

[Roy]

These are all good solutions 
Maybe next time I ran into this problem I'll have more options to pick 

[kpanic]

And one way to do it, is to save everything into an USB stick and then restore back from it.

[kpanic]

Sorry to be late in this topic but here is what I would have done to copy the old home directory:
Mounted the partition which had the old /home to /mnt

1. sudo mount /dev/device_where_old_home_is  /mnt
2. cd /home
3. sudo cp -dpR /mnt/home/your_user .
4. sync && umount /mnt

One way to do it, which keeps the old files on the source drive saved

[m654321]

@Roy
You're welcome - I'm glad to be of any help 

[Roy]

Thanks I very much appreciate it!
I did read your comment a bit late as I already deleted my LL3.8.. initially I wasn't intended to go dual booting, I just wanted the latest LL keeping 3.8 as backup for a short period of time so if something goes bad with 4...
I had to do partitions rearranging because of an unallocated space in the beginning of the hard drive either way, so I decided to split it in half and the first (clean) partition I mounted as the new home and the second (old) partition serves as a backup until everything I need copied to the new one
After everything is ok I'll delete the second partition and expand the first one.
 

[m654321]

@Roy  am I correct in thinking you are dual booting, LL 3.8 and LL 4.0 where you have LL 3.8 home on another partition. If so trying to use the same config files for both systems will break things.

An easier option would be to leave things as is, LL 3.8 with home on the other partition and LL 4.0 with home in its own partition. Then create soft links from LL 4.0 home to the data folders (Documents, Downloads, Music, Videos etc). That way your config files stay safe but you can share data between systems.

"Man ln" is a good source for soft links

DeepThought has a point - this is your best option: soft-linking, also known as symlinking (symbolic-linking).
With this you can access your data files on a dedicated data partition from both your versions of LL, or from any other OS you may install on your PC.If you have a second drive bay, you could have the second drive as a data-only drive, which can also be removed (if need be) and accessedby other PCs.

Let me know if you want to know how to do this and I'll write a short tutorial for you - it's a quick method - won't take you long to carry out if you're happy using the terminal.
There is already a 'symlinking tutorial' on this forum by goldfinger, but I had some issues with it as it caused some instability with
in a Linux multiboot system.

Either way, just let me know ...

[Roy]

Well I am eventually gonna delete 3.8 for 4 and don't really wanna mess around with multiple home partitions

[DeepThought]

@Roy  am I correct in thinking you are dual booting, LL 3.8 and LL 4.0 where you have LL 3.8 home on another partition. If so trying to use the same config files for both systems will break things.

An easier option would be to leave things as is, LL 3.8 with home on the other partition and LL 4.0 with home in its own partition. Then create soft links from LL 4.0 home to the data folders (Documents, Downloads, Music, Videos etc). That way your config files stay safe but you can share data between systems.

"Man ln" is a good source for soft links

[Roy]

Thanks

I wanted to tell LL4 to use the home from LL3.8 which reside on its own drive
And yes I thought the configuration files and some binary files may cause issues so I halted that operation and posted my question here..

So if I want to use my home partition with LL4, I need to reorganize some things there like removing things that may cause issues right?
Only then I can move LL4 home to the old partition..

Think I will boot to LL3.8 and do some backups and save all the configurations I think I'll need in LL4 and then reboot into LL4 and do some re-partitioning...

[m654321]

Hi all
So I've just installed a fresh new Linux Lite 4 
Will it be wise to mount (or just move) home to the old one from 3.8 in another partition?

I've understood that you wish to transfer the files in LL4's 'home' to LL3.8's 'home'.

Instead of moving the whole of 'home', I would just copy & paste your personal datafiles (e.g. the files in Documents, Downloads, Music etc).

If you transfer the whole of 'home' you risk having problems with LL4's configuration files
conflicting with LL3.8, and so LL3.8 may cease to work properly.

[Roy]

Hi all
So I've just installed a fresh new Linux Lite 4 
Will it be wise to mount (or just move) home to the old one from 3.8 in another partition?