upgrading to next version

Jagera

I've just downloaded the latest version of the distro I am using (Mint) and as this is my first step into upgrading I want to make sure I don't destroy too much!!

From what I have read, it is suggested for newbs, such as i, to do a fresh install, rather than upgrade.

I'm OK with this, but I'd like to keep as much as possible without having to totally start from fresh. All my files are backed up, its just things like settings, options & add-ons I've done.

Pygmalion

bw wrote: »

I've just downloaded the latest version of the distro I am using (Mint) and as this is my first step into upgrading I want to make sure I don't destroy too much!!

From what I have read, it is suggested for newbs, such as i, to do a fresh install, rather than upgrade.

I'm OK with this, but I'd like to keep as much as possible without having to totally start from fresh. All my files are backed up, its just things like settings, options & add-ons I've done.

Most of that should be stored in /home/<username>/, if you make a backup of the relevant stuff there (make sure to include hidden files and folders, most settings files are hidden, or just backup the entire folder) and move everything back to where it was most, if not all, of your settings should be saved.

Also when you installed Mint did you have a separate partition for your /home?
If so you should be able to tell the installer to just use it instead of overwriting it, would save you the bother of moving things back and forth.

Jagera

Yep I have the /home folder on a different partition. I'll give it a crack over the weekend & report my experience.

I was just not sure that the settings would still be valid - for e.g. The version of Thunderbird changes in the upgrade, so would the folder need to be renamed or anything.

Skrynesaver

Thunderbird 3, on reading a Thunderbird 2 config, ports the settings to it's own format

DeepBlue

Pygmalion wrote: »

Also when you installed Mint did you have a separate partition for your /home?
If so you should be able to tell the installer to just use it instead of overwriting it, would save you the bother of moving things back and forth.

I've seen that advice given a few times. How does one actually do it though?
Do you have to guess ahead of time how much space your home folder is likely to take up?
Is there a tutorial somewhere to follow?

loldog

DeepBlue wrote: »

I've seen that advice given a few times. How does one actually do it though?
Do you have to guess ahead of time how much space your home folder is likely to take up?
Is there a tutorial somewhere to follow?

Psychocats has a tutorial here. This is definitely worth doing as it makes upgrading really quick and easy.

I usually have about 10GB for my root partition, 512Mb swap and all the rest for my /home folder. If you don't have much disk space, you can make the root partition smaller, probably down to about 5GB or so (you will need some space if you're installing lots of progams to the root partition).

.

DeepBlue

loldog wrote: »

Psychocats has a tutorial here. This is definitely worth doing as it makes upgrading really quick and easy.

Great, I'll have a gander at that.
I tend to take the fresh-install approach when upgrading so it takes probably a day once every six months between copying stuff off my pc/ upgrading/ copying stuff back to my PC.
This way should hopefully make things a lot quicker and more painless.

Pygmalion

DeepBlue wrote: »

I've seen that advice given a few times. How does one actually do it though?
Do you have to guess ahead of time how much space your home folder is likely to take up?
Is there a tutorial somewhere to follow?

I generally give 15GB to the main partition and /home gets whatever is left, usually a ton.
15GB for / might be a bit much though, I'm pushing 10GB atm with a full KDE install and tons of apps I don't use, but I just checked and /var/cache/pacman/pkg is using 4.9G of that, so like 50% of what I'm actually using :P

Jagera

I just did the upgrade from Gloria to Isadora, when I boot I do not see any items on the menu toolbar. The only thing i can see is the clock.

On the desktop, I have the standard shortcuts to the File system & my home drive.

Some relevant information:
- I have 3 partitions, root, home (both ext4) & swap.
- when I upgraded (have tried 2 times), I format the root partition & leave the home in tact
- I have dual boot, grub is working fine, though I have not yet tested booting into Windows, but at the moment I doubt there will be an issue
- my CPU is 64 bit. The version of Gloria was 32-bit, I am trying to upgrade to Isadora 64-bit

I have looked at various log files, though I don't know enough to see which one should be giving me any error messages
I also don't know many terminal commands

Thanks for any assistance.

loldog

OK, so there's nothing on your panel?

Try right-clicking on the panel, select Add to Panel and add:

Menu Bar
Notification Area
Indicator Applet
Indicator Applet Session

and anything else you might want to add. You can position them on the panel by right-clicking and selecting "Move".

Hopefully that's all you will need to do.

.

Jagera

loldog wrote: »

Hopefully that's all you will need to do.

Done. cheers.