MX Linux Forum

I am a newbie and ran MX in a Windows-hosted VM. I quite liked it, but ended up installing Mint 19.1 XFCE alongside Windows simply because it is supposed to be 1 of the friendliest, if not the friendliest, distro for newbies. Yesterday, after only 3 months, I had a bad experience.
A week ago I upgraded the kernel, on advice on the forum, from 4.15 to 4.18, even though the golden rule is to stick with the kernel series that came with the distro. The upgrade went fine, but yesterday there was a point upgrade to 4.18.x, and that deleted my network icon, driver manager and my internet access. On the forum they recommend a recovery with Timeshift, which I don't have. They don't think it is due to SystemD. So a reinstallation is called for. Now, this mishap also represents an opportunity to install another distro, and I am thinking about MX. I have a few questions.

1. can I use the Mint home directory to replace the MX directory? Probably not, but I am not sure.
2. If not, can I install the Mint .config directory to replace the MX directory?
3. I used Aptik to back up my packages and repos - can I use Aptik on MX to install my packages and/or repos?

Basically no to all questions. Mixing distros is a recipe for trouble...

we do have aptik in our repos, so that might work as long as the packages you choose are available in our own repo. mixing repos is a good way to break a distro though. mint and MX have vastly different bases.

as to using the Mint home directory, you can, but you want get our defaults, and some other items might now work as expected (our menu for instance) which could cause confusion if you need help down the road. I always leave a home folder with the root directory of the distro, and stash my data elsewhere.

Hmm, seems to me you don't want to back up your data, always a possibility of losing it, though extremely small, had to mention it.

Yes, you could use your present /home with a new installation, usually all dot files will be replaced by the new distro, but if you keep your old /home, you will be keeping some of the old distros dot files, which might lead to some trouble down the line.

I would advise that you back up your data to another disk, then copy it back once you have your new installation, (which, I hope you will have your /home on a separate partition).

dolphin_oracle wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:09 am as to using the Mint home directory, you can, but you want get our defaults, and some other items might now work as expected (our menu for instance) which could cause confusion if you need help down the road. I always leave a home folder with the root directory of the distro, and stash my data elsewhere.

I don't understand what you mean. After installing MX, there will be a fresh home directory. If I then replace it with my Mint home dir. all those MX settings will be gone, incl. the defaults.

mxer wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:50 am Hmm, seems to me you don't want to back up your data, always a possibility of losing it, though extremely small, had to mention it.

It is not that I don't want to, it did not work out - too long a story. I do have my personal data/files backed up.

mxer wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:50 am Yes, you could use your present /home with a new installation, usually all dot files will be replaced by the new distro, but if you keep your old /home, you will be keeping some of the old distros dot files, which might lead to some trouble down the line.

So, is it possible to replace the fresh MX /home with the Mint /home or not? Or are the .config files a problem? I am confused by what you and Dolphin Oracle say.

mxer wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:50 am I would advise that you back up your data to another disk, then copy it back once you have your new installation, (which, I hope you will have your /home on a separate partition).

I have all my personal data backed up, as I said in the intro. Yes, my /home is on a separate partition in Mint.

Klaas Vaak wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:02 am

dolphin_oracle wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:09 am as to using the Mint home directory, you can, but you want get our defaults, and some other items might now work as expected (our menu for instance) which could cause confusion if you need help down the road. I always leave a home folder with the root directory of the distro, and stash my data elsewhere.

I don't understand what you mean. After installing MX, there will be a fresh home directory. If I then replace it with my Mint home dir. all those MX settings will be gone, incl. the defaults.

my fault. bad autocorrect.

what I meant to say was...

as to using the Mint home directory, you can, but you won't get our defaults, and some other items might not work as expected (our menu for instance) which could cause confusion if you need help down the road. I always leave a home folder with the root directory of the distro, and stash my data elsewhere.

Klaas Vaak wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:02 am

dolphin_oracle wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:09 am as to using the Mint home directory, you can, but you want get our defaults, and some other items might now work as expected (our menu for instance) which could cause confusion if you need help down the road. I always leave a home folder with the root directory of the distro, and stash my data elsewhere.

I don't understand what you mean. After installing MX, there will be a fresh home directory. If I then replace it with my Mint home dir. all those MX settings will be gone, incl. the defaults.

But the defaults stored in your Mint home directory won't necessarily work with MX and you will have a devil of a time straightening out the mess after the fact. You will be far better off if you just copy your data over to the new home directory rather than moving everything lock, stock, and barrel.

j2mcgreg wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:24 am But the defaults stored in your Mint home directory won't necessarily work with MX and you will have a devil of a time straightening out the mess after the fact. You will be far better off if you just copy your data over to the new home directory rather than moving everything lock, stock, and barrel.

But if you copy them to MX /home won't you then get duplicates of certain files, causing confusion and maybe an operational mess?

Bottom line do not copy Mint home directory files to MX home, except data files you have created, such as text, pictures, etc.
However it is always convenient to have a separate data partition segregated from the MX file system whether home or root.