Migrating from Fedora 14 to Ubuntu 12.04 and beyond.

[PatrickDickey]

I think this has been asked and answered a few times, but I'll ask again. Please forgive me if it's already been covered ad nauseum.

I'm on the Fedora 14 setup, and want to move over to Ubuntu 12.04. My question is this: If I choose to manually partition my drives in the installer, and don't format the /home or /var/hda/files/ partitions, would it install properly without losing any of my data? I would be keeping the same partition structure that I have (including the LVM) if possible.

The reason I'm asking this is, I have been getting kernel errors CIFS errors according to logwatch. And since Fedora 14 is no longer supported by anyone, I think it's time to move on. Plus all of my other systems are Ubuntu based. If worse comes to worse, I do have an external drive (that has a lot of bad sectors, so I don't want to rely on it unless I have to), that I could copy everything from /var/hda/files onto--at least until I get everything set up again. I just don't want to have to go through the hassle of unplugging all of my external drives, reinstalling, plugging them all back in, and setting everything up again.

So, again, my question is, can I use the option to manually partition the drives, and only format the / partition? Then install hda like normal, and have it automatically pick up whatever is in /var/hda/files and on my greyhole shares?

If not, is there a step by step guide for migrating from Fedora 14 to the newer versions available?

Thanks, and have a great day:)
Patrick.

[bigfoot65]

Anything is possible, but I think you are asking for trouble. The /home directory contents may be different for Ubuntu vs Fedora.

As for /var/hda/files, that should be ok for the most part. If you are using Greyhole, the shares will automatically rebuild when reconnected.

It is not advisable to try to upgrade to Ubuntu without starting over fresh. Disconnecting/reconnecting drives is a must in my opinion. What you are trying to avoid may cause you more work.

My recommendation would be to backup what you need to a separate drive, then start from scratch with Ubuntu install. Once you get everything situated, reconnect and mount the other drives.

Just my 2 cents, but I have not heard of a successful upgrade from Fedora to Ubuntu without going through all these steps.

[PatrickDickey]

Anything is possible, but I think you are asking for trouble. The /home directory contents may be different for Ubuntu vs Fedora.

As for /var/hda/files, that should be ok for the most part. If you are using Greyhole, the shares will automatically rebuild when reconnected.

It is not advisable to try to upgrade to Ubuntu without starting over fresh. Disconnecting/reconnecting drives is a must in my opinion. What you are trying to avoid may cause you more work.

My recommendation would be to backup what you need to a separate drive, then start from scratch with Ubuntu install. Once you get everything situated, reconnect and mount the other drives.

Just my 2 cents, but I have not heard of a successful upgrade from Fedora to Ubuntu without going through all these steps.

Thanks bigfoot65. In truth, I don't care about the /home directory--as the only thing in it is a virtual machine that I never use. So, about the only part that I wouldn't want to format is the /var/hda/files directory itself. (The landing zone). Right now, I'm trying to do a balance, so hopefully that clears out some of the files in the landing zone. If not, then I'll have to move them somewhere else before I do anything more with it. Sounds like this will be a good post-Christmas undertaking.


Off hand, is there any command that will tell greyhole to completely empty out that landing zone? I've got a 1.8TB drive sitting virtually empty (at least until greyhole is done moving things around), so it has plenty of room for everything in the landing zone and then some.

Have a great day:)
Patrick.

[bigfoot65]

Typically to get Greyhole to finish it's job, you can do as root user:

Code: Select all

greyhole -f

You might even consider copying all the shares from /var/hda/files to your other drive. Then when you rebuild you can wipe the OS drive. Once Ubuntu is installed, you can copy the shares back.