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Re: [LUG] move user data and settings to new hard disk

 

Roland Tarver wrote:
>
> Is it really necessary to create a temporary _partition_, in which to
> mount the old disk? Many thanks.

Eek sorry - I meant mount it somewhere - probably a temporary directory.

> Recently I have been thinking about which distros to try. I am likely
> to try out several. To facility this I was planning to keep data and
> distro on separate partitions. If this is a credible idea(?), then
> perhaps Paul may want to do the same and not combine your data and
> distro in the same partition?

Yes it is doable.

The first complication is keeping UIDs and GIDs in sync, which isn't
that hard if you only have one or two users.

The second is that many apps aren't downwardly compatible, so if one
distro uses Firefox 3.5 and one 3.1, and you update your firefox
settings, it may not even start in another.

But I'd have thought try out the distro, see if it is any good, before
you start shuffling the fiddly things like mail config, browser settings
etc, into the distro.

90+% of what you need to know about a distro is found out in installing
it, and checking what applications they bundle. Of course if what you
find out by installing the distro is that the installer ate your data
partition you might not be a very happy bunny.

Me I just install new distros I'm interested in on an old computer and
give it a bash for a few hours, given people give away better computers
than the one I've used for this for years this doesn't have to be a
luxury activity.


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