Help with sorting install of Mint Cinnamon

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pctek

807 posts

Ultimate Geek
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Inactive user

#228695 17-Jan-2018 20:54

So due to blundering about with original dual boot, then removing windows and such this is how it is now:

sda1 has the boot loader

sda2 has the system and /home

I also now have a sdb1 which I manually copied /home over too. Which I think means it's intact as a backup?

So I hate it.

I want system on sda1, and /home on sda2.

So do I:

Boot off install disk, reformat sda1, tell it to be install folder, let it do that, but do NOT format sda2, and point /home to this partition?
I think, from various net help guides, I can do this via the install options?

And that would mean I'd then have to manually delete all files and folders (except /home) off sda2.

Would this work?

cebo

71 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 24

#1941708 17-Jan-2018 21:57

What you've described should work, but maybe it's just easier to do a clean install and then copy from your backup on sdb1 to sda1.

pctek

807 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 157
Inactive user

#1941796 18-Jan-2018 08:55

I can do that? The backup, all I did was, via Nemo, copy and paste the entire of /home to the other drive.

So I would copy and paste it back after then, overwriting the existing /home?

cebo

71 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 24

#1941932 18-Jan-2018 11:37

Yes, although don't forget there may be some hidden config files - if you want to save your personal settings you'll need to make sure they are saved and copied back too.

If you just copied the /home folder over then the configs will have moved too, but if you just opened /home/user and copied everything inside it they probably haven't.

These files won't be very important if you haven't done much configuration of your workspace or tweaking of the apps you use, but if you have, they hold all the changes you've made.

pctek

807 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 157
Inactive user

#1942024 18-Jan-2018 14:27

Thanks!! At last, I asked this so many times (elsewhere) and you were the only one that actually answered the question. Numerous people gave me all sorts of scripts, suggested methods of having my install or reinstalling, or leaving things as is, asked questions about my drives, went on about mounting etc etc etc, but no-one had confirmed or not, this.

Yes, I copied the entire of /home, not just /home/user and checked all the . files and folders went too.

Awesome.

pctek

807 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 157
Inactive user

#1942125 18-Jan-2018 18:55

So I went ahead.

It's stuffed.

A friend helped, permissions and ownership were root, now back as me. He says all is as it should be now, got me to check various things.

Just...nothing loads. Not Firefox, not Thunderbird, nothing. You get nothing.

So, before he had to go, he got me to make a new user. Which I am in now.

It allowed be to run Firefox, but bizarrely most esle doesn't, like the software manager for instance.

Terminal works.

Most apps part of Mint, do not. You just get nothing at all.

So it's not just the original /home/user now it's /home/user2 as well but in a different way.

wtf, beginning to hate this.