Upgrading from LL2.8 to LL3 - can I keep the same '/home' partition?

[bigmanstrat]

I upgraded from 2.8 to 3.0 last night.  I have a separate /home partition and had no problem carrying out the upgrade and preserving all my files.  I did encounter a problem with Grub but once that was sorted I had no other problems.  I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to upgrade with the separate /home partition, I had visions of it not being as straightforward as it appeared to be and expected that I was going to have to restore files from my backup.

[m654321]

I upgraded from 2.8 to 3.0 last night.  I have a separate /home partition and had no problem carrying out the upgrade and preserving all my files.  I did encounter a problem with Grub but once that was sorted I had no other problems.  I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to upgrade with the separate /home partition, I had visions of it not being as straightforward as it appeared to be and expected that I was going to have to restore files from my backup.

Thanks bigmanstrat - that's really useful to know.  I'm not quite ready to do the upgrade from LL2.8 to 3.0 on my first laptop listed below. In fact, I might wait until LL2.8 'expires' (2019), before upgrading  as it fits all my needs and it is now running extremely smoothly. Sometimes, you reach a point where you think what's to be gained by upgrading. However, that said, I have put LL3.0 on my Samsung N145 netbook & it runs a treat!

Mike

[Ramlee]

Hi everyone,  I hope this is an appropriate thread for my question.  I'm poised to upgrade from LL2.8 to LL3.0...everything seems ready to roll.  As usual, two or three steps into the installation process I'm confronted with a range of installation options; 1. Do you want to replace Ubuntu 14.xxx? 2. Do you want to run LL3.0 alongside LL2.8? 3. Do you want to erase the disc and install LL3.00?  etc. etc. and finally 6. Something else.  Question: If all I want to do is format my root partition and install LL3.00 on the same partition should I go with option 1. above?  I have my puter setup with a 15Gb root partition sda2 and a much larger data storage partition sda3.  Advice greatly appreciated.  Ramlee

[torreydale]

You want to use the something else option.  See the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui5jBdTIuyI

[gold_finger]

Safest option is to use "Something else" so you can manually direct installation exactly as you want.  1st option (replace) may very well wipe out everything even though the wording doesn't clearly imply that.

Is your large data partition your Home partition, or is it just a separate partition you made for data storage with a different mount point?


If it is your Home partition go ahead and follow video posted by torreydale.  Took a quick glance at that video.  For demo purposes, he starts by installing an old version of Mint, then describes some backup procedures, and then shows procedure to install new version of Mint and re-use the Home partition without wiping out the data on it.  So, you can probably skip to about 1/2 way through where he describes replacing old OS with new one.  Basically you set the mount points for Root, Home and Boot (if you have one) partitions, but only format the Root and Boot partitions.  Do not format the Home partition -- just set its mount point so it gets used for the new install but not overwritten.  (If you don't have a Boot partition ignore that part of video.  Boot partitions are not necessary, so don't think that you must create one if you don't already have one.  I've never used one myself.)


If your Home folder is actually part of the Root partition and that large data partition is separate and mounted somewhere else, you may want to back-up any config files in Home that you want to re-use.  (Eg. Configs for Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.)  In that situation you will loose whatever is in Home because it's part of the Root partition which will be overwritten.  As for the separate data partition, you can either not deal with it during install and set it up to be mounted afterwards; or you can manually type in whatever mount point you want for it during the install so you don't have to do it later.  If you do set the mount point during install, be sure NOT to check the format box for that partition.

[Ramlee]

Hi everyone, want to say thanx for the feedback.  I watched the video; very informative and comprehensive.  For the purposes of using an existing root partition to overlay a new series it was relevant from about 21 minutes onwards.  I have decided to take the sage advice of Mike (M654321) and keep running 2.8 until it expires; as the saying goes, if it ain't broke...Regards Ramlee.