Can i Upgrade

[aysos]

Just asking. Am i able to upgrade from zorin up to ubuntu, or will i need to clean install?

[Irithori]

Clean install.

[MASONTX]

Up grade may be the wrong term. It's not like going from a Yugo to a Cadilac. Each distro has different goals and strengths. More like deciding if you need a van, an suv, a pick up or an economy car.

[CaptainDangeax]

Always clean install. Next time, put the /home on a separate partition and DON'T FORMAT it. You'lll recover your documents, your email accounts, your browser favorites, your high scores on games... for this time, save your /home/replace_by_your_user_name somewhere, and do a clean install.

[tdsan]

Captain made a very good point, Ubuntu gives you the ability to peer into other partitions and pull that data you need into another partition, there is always another option, you can use Partition Magic, or O&O Partition tools or Quest Partition tools to modify the partition to allow for an install of Ubuntu, move the data over to the next partition and then delete that partition once your are done (be sure to keep track of which partition you are deleting, lol).

Anyway, good luck with your project.

Take care.

T

[aysos]

Thanks for the replies and will try what is suggested i like the alternative home idea! So i can have swap/boot/root on one partition and another /home somewhere else? When i clean install i just format the boot/root and leave the /home and it will use that with the new distro?


I've moved on from zorin to Pinguy and enjoying it for the moment. So many distros to choose from!

[velikij]

Yes, the new install will use the old /home partition if the new Linux's partitioner is told to do that; you must not format the /home partition.

However, before that you have to make a separate partition for /home. You don't need any of those commercial tools to do that, in general. The gparted on an Ubuntu live cd can do that. What you want to end up with is (minimally) a root (/) partition, a swap partition, and a /home partition. On older systems and disks, a /boot partition was recommended, but that's not necessary for newer systems.

Gparted can shrink existing partitions so you can create the new /home partition after existing partitions. Expect that to be pretty slow! Then, using the live CD, just mount the partition containing the old /home directory and the new /home partition somewhere like /mnt/old and /mnt/new (create those directies) and then copy. Don't use cp to copy, use rsync or some other utility which will preserve any symlinks you may have. Actually I think Gparted has a copy facility which my help.

What partitions do you have in the existing setup?

[aysos]

Thanks for the reply.

I currently have /boot a swap a /root(/) and /home

Sorry if this sounds thick, but when you say mnt/old etc

would i create mnt/old/home or just mnt/old where 'old' and 'new' is substituted for home? I thought the home partition had to be called 'home'?

[yancek]

Your last post indicates that you now have four partitions so are they all primary. If they are numbered sda1 - 4, then they are. If you have partitions numbered sda5 and higher these are logical partitions. You haven't posted partition information so we don't know which is the case nor do we know if you have any free/unallocated space. If you don't, you will need to delete or resize something. For specific suggestions, if you are still just using Zorin, run the following command: sudo fdisk -l(lower case Letter L in the command) which will output drive/partition information. Also run: df -h which shows partition size info.

[aysos]

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda2 * 2046 1953523964 976760959+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1945139200 1953523964 4192382+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 2048 1953791 975872 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 1955840 783204351 390624256 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 783206400 1945133055 580963328 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5807db4a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 1234968575 617483264 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 1236254720 1412304895 88025088 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3 1412306280 1908264959 247979340 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 1908279296 1953523711 22622208 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT



hope this helps?