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ZDNET key takeaways
- Hopping to a special distro does not imply you need to lose knowledge.
- There are three choices you’ll be able to strive.
- Make certain to check these earlier than you do it.
Are you feeling that everlasting pull to leap to a special Linux distribution? It occurs. I’ve gone by means of that have so many occasions that I’ve misplaced depend.
Migrating from one distribution to a different is not all that tough… Until you wish to retain all the knowledge inside your house listing (or any listing, for that matter). If you happen to do not do one thing to save lots of that knowledge, you’ll lose out and have to start out throughout.
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You don’t need that (until you don’t have anything of significance in your house listing).
What you are able to do is dependent upon your setup and wishes.
Let me clarify.
The easiest way to change distributions and preserve your knowledge
Linux is so properly designed which you could set up the working system in such a manner that your house listing will be simply migrated from one distribution to a different.
The way you do that is to partition the distribution in order that your house listing is on a separate partition from the OS.
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Sounds tough, proper? It is actually not.
Let me present you the fundamentals of how that is finished, demonstrating on the most recent launch of Ubuntu. Earlier than you even begin the set up, you must both be certain that there is a second disk in your machine or join an exterior SSD (with a cable quick sufficient to deal with knowledge transmission). To do that, stroll by means of the set up as you usually would till you attain the Disk Setup part.
If you’re introduced with the 2 routes of organising your disk, choose “Guide set up.” Within the ensuing window, you must see your drive listed. You probably have a secondary drive, it ought to be listed as properly.
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Choose the secondary disk after which click on +. When prompted, configure the scale you wish to use for the /house partition, choose /house from the Mount Level drop-down, after which click on OK.
After that, repeat the method, solely this time choose the first drive, click on +, and configure the mount level as /. Make certain to allocate the quantity of house you need for the partition (fairly presumably all the drive), and click on OK after which Subsequent.
At this level, end the set up as you’ll usually.
Now that you’ve got configured your /house partition to be on a separate disk, you’ll be able to hop distributions everytime you need, ensuring to put in the OS on the first drive.
The ‘different’ methodology
The opposite methodology for saving your knowledge is by way of backups. That is proper, the previous backup routine.
As for backing up /house, you do not wish to again up all the listing. As a substitute, again up your consumer listing inside /house (comparable to /house/jack) to an exterior drive (even a USB flash drive). You may both again up the whole lot in that listing, or solely the folders containing the information/recordsdata you wish to save.
Do bear in mind, nevertheless, that there are hidden folders that comprise app configurations, caches, and different bits. Due to that, I might suggest backing up the whole lot in your house listing.
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If you happen to’re undecided which backup instrument to make use of, I like to recommend Déjà Dup, TimeShift, or Fortunate Backup (every of which will be put in from the usual repositories).
After getting that taken care of, be certain that to again up some other vital knowledge, though an important knowledge on a desktop machine might be in your house listing.
Now you can set up the brand new OS. I might be certain that to create your house listing on a secondary drive, so you do not have to undergo this the subsequent time you hop.
After the set up completes, reboot, join the drive housing the information, open your file supervisor, and begin copying issues over.
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Don’t merely copy your consumer listing from the secondary drive to the /house listing on the first drive, as you can run into permissions or possession points.
A 3rd possibility
There’s an alternative choice that is a kind of hybrid. To illustrate you have copied your vital directories out of your /house to an exterior (or secondary inner) drive.
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As a substitute of copying these directories, you’ll be able to merely hyperlink them. To illustrate you have copied the whole lot in ~/Paperwork to a secondary drive that’s mounted at /media/jack/drive1/, and also you wish to hyperlink your ~/Paperwork listing with it.
First, delete the ~/Paperwork listing (assuming it is empty) with the command:
rm -rf ~/Paperwork
Subsequent, subject the next command out of your unique house listing:
ln -s /media/jack/drive1/Paperwork /house/jack/drive1/Paperwork
It’s best to now see a brand new ~/Paperwork listing, containing the whole lot in /media/jack/drive1/Paperwork.
And there you could have it.
My final suggestion is that you just take a look at these strategies on a spare machine. On high of that, irrespective of which route you are taking, all the time again up your knowledge.