Best Way to Upgrade/ Move to New Computer & Drive

[asqwerth]

Let's just focus on helping OP do a FRESH install of MX23 over her old MX, while trying to preserve her /home. Whether you call it an install or migration or upgrade, the point is that she is NOT trying to do in in-place upgrade of her existing MX.

We can discuss definitions elsewhere. I agree with @Nokkaelaein by the way. The "preserve home while installing" advice is clearly not the same as the "in-place upgrade of existing MX installation". It doesn't carry that same warning/disclaimer.

[Michael-IDA]

The hidden .config files in your existing MX 21 /home can play havoc with the new .config files that will be created when the new versions of those packages are installed

Ah, aren't they overwritten by the new install though? At least the ones that changed enough to matter is what I've seen in the past. The whole point of preserving /home was to save the 10s or even 100s of hours of reconfiguring starting from scratch creates.

Let's just focus on helping OP do a FRESH install of MX23 over her old MX, while trying to preserve her /home.

You only get presented with option to reuse home, if you first select custom partitioning.

I'm having the same issue, like Kelly, I have not gotten offered a way to preserve home when trying to reuse /home. The formatting drop down I’m given does not contain a ‘preserve’ option as shown in the up thread pic.

c) select to re-use the existing home directory

and that I should be presented with this option
https://mxlinux.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... ration.jpg

This use to be the way to do this:

- Tarball existing /home/user dir, copy it to something external (old-home).
- Run the installer, manually partition and encrypt everything with a passphrase you’ll use in production (throw-away).
- Remember the passphrase!
- Boot throw-away, unpack tarball on /home/{whatever}
- logout of user, SHIFT-ALT-F1, login as root
- As root move old-home to /home/user, fix perms, etc.
- Shutdown

- Boot Live USB
- Run the installer, don’t partition, select manual partitioning
- Select existing partitions and check encrypt for everything
- Use the exact same passphrase!
- Check preserve /home

Answer the other questions, and it just works. The installer will not ask for any other passphrase, so you have to use the same one both times.

Saved me 50 - 100 hours of re-doing settings, configs, passwords, key-bindings, panel settings, button modifications, etc., etc. as they popped up over the next year...

I'd attach a screenshot, but the drop down collapses when I try.

So….

Is there no way now to preserve an encrypted /home like there was 5 years ago?

Thanks,
Michael

[asqwerth]

Ah, aren't they overwritten by the new install though? At least the ones that changed enough to matter is what I've seen in the past

Existing contents in /home, including hidden dot config files, are never written over.

can't help with encrypted /home.

[Fernent]

Ah, aren't they overwritten by the new install though? At least the ones that changed enough to matter is what I've seen in the past

Existing contents in /home, including hidden dot config files, are never written over.

can't help with encrypted /home.

I have /home on a separate drive partition and /home/$me encrypted with ecryptfs. Previously using MX21.3, I installed MX23.5 to its own partition while preserving /home. Then chroot to the new installation and install ecryptfs-utils there, and I was up and running.

[Michael-IDA]

I have /home on a separate drive partition and /home/$me encrypted with ecryptfs. Previously using MX21.3, I installed MX23.5 to its own partition while preserving /home. Then chroot to the new installation and install ecryptfs-utils there, and I was up and running.

+1 !

I basically tried what you did (albeit differently, but the results were the same). Going straight from 19 to 23 was too much for Xfce, so I did this:

viewtopic.php?p=815153#p815153

You end up with two users, but it saved 100s (literally) of hours of re-configuring the 10+ years of configurations I've made to TDE and other apps I use daily. TDE being my 'work' environment, it is more important for me to keep its configs.

I'll probably use something like 'startx -- :1' to run both users at once, but that's in the future.

Best,
Michael

Edit:

I'll probably use something like 'startx -- :1' to run both users at once

To do this (for me who normally uses the second user the most):
- Login normally as second user (that uses the Ctrl+Alt+F7 display)
- To open first user, Ctrl+Alt+Fn
- - login as first user
- - startx -- :1

which starts a second display running the first user on Xfce. You can change back and forth with Ctrl+Alt+F7 / Ctrl+Alt+Fn. Do note: The first user hijacks sound at the hardware level, so my main user (second) has no sound . Okay, really not that big a deal for me, I don't use zoom etc. that often.

[Danathar]

I TOTALLY understand why MX does not support in-place upgrades (excluding custom installations on top of your home directory). Supporting an "official" in-place upgrade process is incredibly complicated. The number of things that can go horribly wrong—well, it requires a lot of time, effort, people, etc. Many distros do not have the resources to support that.

There are very few distros that support in-place upgrades AND inform users that a major version upgrade is available, while also providing an option to upgrade—like macOS or even Windows does using the GUI(ignoring that Windows 10 goes EOL this fall). As far as I can tell, the ONLY distributions that satisfy both requirements are Ubuntu and Fedora. Everybody else, as far as I know, doesn’t go that far.

It’s been a bit of a disappointment, as I wish more would, but I get it.

In my case, I have a couple of old PCs I’m going to donate. I want to install Linux on them in some OEM mode on boot up that prompts them to create their user ID and password, and that allows the user to get upgrades in a nice, non-techie way—but also ensures they’re not left stranded without knowing their OS is EOL. Honestly, other than Ubuntu LTS or Fedora (and I’m not even sure Fedora has an OEM install method), there doesn’t seem to be any distro that meets my requirements.

I LOVE MX and AntiX, but those two features—OEM install and prompted GUI notification/ability to upgrade to major versions—are just not supported. So, I’ll probably not put MX on those systems. It will likely be something like the Ubuntu LTS or Fedora Cinnamon spin (since that’s close to what a Windows user might be familiar with). It's a little sad because there will be a LOT of PC's headed for the scrap heap after this fall due to Windows 11 incompatibility and these are perfectly good systems with Linux on them.

[FullScale4Me]

I LOVE MX and AntiX, but those two features—OEM install and prompted GUI notification/ability to upgrade to major versions—are just not supported. So, I’ll probably not put MX on those systems. It will likely be something like the Ubuntu LTS or Fedora Cinnamon spin (since that’s close to what a Windows user might be familiar with). It's a little sad because there will be a LOT of PC's headed for the scrap heap after this fall due to Windows 11 incompatibility and these are perfectly good systems with Linux on them.

If you run the MX Installer minstall -h in terminal you will get (excerpt below)

Code: Select all

-o, --oem  Install the operating system, delaying prompts for user-specific options until
           the first reboot.  Upon rebooting, the installer will be run with --oobe so 
           that the user can provide these details. This is useful for OEM installations, 
           selling or giving away a computer with an OS pre-loaded on it.
           
  --oobe   Out Of the Box Experience option. This will start automatically if installed 
           with --oem option.

To experiment, run minstall --pretend

From help - "Test mode for GUI, you can advance to different screens without actually installing." FYI - I'm told not all options are available in pretend mode.

[Danathar]

I’ll give it a try and see what it’s like. I honestly didn’t know that existed. Thanks

[Michael-IDA]

It's a little sad because there will be a LOT of PC's headed for the scrap heap after this fall due to Windows 11 incompatibility and these are perfectly good systems with Linux on them.

You can installing MX (or any Linux) on the old comp's and then installing Win11 in a VM to save these PCs...

https://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization ... virtualbox

Wish more people would think 'outside the box'

Best,
Michael

Edit:
PS: Windows 11 Pro Cd Key Retail Microsoft Global can be had for $10. So, don't let friends buy retail

[Danathar]

It's a little sad because there will be a LOT of PC's headed for the scrap heap after this fall due to Windows 11 incompatibility and these are perfectly good systems with Linux on them.

You can installing MX (or any Linux) on the old comp's and then installing Win11 in a VM to save these PCs...

https://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization ... virtualbox

Wish more people would think 'outside the box'

Best,
Michael

Edit:
PS: Windows 11 Pro Cd Key Retail Microsoft Global can be had for $10. So, don't let friends buy retail

Somehow…I doubt that $10 key legal…