Re: [Sheflug] Changing distro woes

[Lesley Binks <lesley.binks@xxxxxxxxx>]

robert fallis wrote:
> On Tue, 01 May 2007 22:55:55 +0100, Lesley Anne Binks 
> <lesley.binks@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>>
>>> > _
>> If you are using KDE with SuSE then I suggest Kubuntu (Ubuntu with 
>> KDE) rather than Ubuntu which, by default, comes with Gnome.
>>
> I'm using Gnome with suse, I have one question about going to ubuntu, do 
> I have to save my home directory?
> or will ubuntu see and save it?
Not sure if this was sent out to the list or not.  Was using a webmail 
interface and log in timed out so apologies for duplicates.

0.  Always back up important stuff before doing anything that might 
destroy it.  Important stuff should include at least /home and /etc and 
perhaps /usr/local.
0a. Always confirm your backup has backed up what you expected it to 
backup e.g. all the 'hidden' files and directories (e.g. .bashrc, 
.fontconfig etc) as well as the normal files. And ensure that permission 
problems don't interfere with backups of /etc and /usr/local.

1.  At install time, most distros will recognise existing partitions on 
a disk - but don't rely on this all the time - there have been problems 
at this stage in SuSE 10.  So it is important to back up the important 
stuff.

2.  You can install two distros on the same machine but they will expect 
to use their own partitions and it is safer to let them use their own 
partitions.  You couldn't expect to run Ubuntu using /etc partition from 
SuSE for example.

Example:
disk is /dev/hda
windows on /dev/hda1
SuSE on /dev/hda2, /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda5.
Ubuntu gets installed on /dev/hda6, /dev/hda7 and /dev/hda8.

Ubuntu knows to mount /dev/hda6, /dev/hda7,/dev/hda8
SuSE knows to mount /dev/hda2, /dev/hda3, /dev/hda5

Neither necessarily knows anything about the other.
While running SuSE you could
mkdir /mnt/ubuntu1
mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/ubuntu1

and thereby access whatever is in /dev/hda6 of the ubuntu installation.
And vice versa in ubuntu.  So you could mount your SuSE home directory 
under /mnt/suse1 while running Ubuntu.

Suppose under SuSE you have /home/fred and /home/mildred
mounting the SuSE /home directory to /mnt/suse1 means that you will then 
have /mnt/suse1/fred and /mnt/suse1/mildred.  These will not act as home 
directories under Ubuntu.

However, having added fred and mildred as users within the Ubuntu 
system, you will then also have /home/fred and /home/mildred in Ubuntu, 
which will be different from /mnt/suse1/fred and /mnt/suse1/mildred and 
also not the same as /home/fred and /home/mildred when running SuSE.

You will be able to copy across into the new home dirs application 
specific config files (e.g. .gkrellm2) but you may find differences in 
stuff like .bashrc that need merging rather than copying over.

If you want to share data between applications across the distros then 
you need to
either
1.  be very sure the applications in each distro are compatible i.e. is 
appx v1.2.3 backwardly compatible with appx v1.1.2
*or*
2.  Keep the apps running at the same version number across the distros

to avoid data corruption.

Hope this helps

regards

L.





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