After an update to my arch system broke everything, I am thinking of giving OpenSuse 12.3 64-bit XFCE a go. I have created a USB pen drive with the install media. When I come to the partitions section, I cannot find a way to tell it I want to keep my existing /home (/dev/sda4) partition with all my data on it… so do not want to format it.
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009d6f9
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 16595144 8297541 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 16595145 114257919 48831387+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 114257920 1953523711 919632896 83 Linux
On 2013-05-08, urbanomad64 <urbanomad64@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> After an update to my arch system broke everything, I am thinking of
> giving OpenSuse 12.3 64-bit XFCE a go.
I have to admit I’ve no experience of openSUSE XFCE Live in terms of installing. However, I do know if you download the
DVD version and install from there, you can preserve /home/ if it has it’s own partition.
Somewhere in the whole installation process it comes to the page where it tells you all the things it is going to do when you continue the installation. This is only a proposal. On of the items there is partitioning. When anything there does not suite you (and this is crucial, because you could destroy things you did not want to destroy), you click on it and then there are several possibilities there to go into expert mode and to make everything to your liking.
In any case, as I see your fdisk, the proposal should be to use sda1 for swap, to use sda2 for root (or /) and that should be formatted. And to use sda4 for /home and it should not be formatted
But earlier in the installation (and I guess you should not use automatic installation from the beginning, which I never do), there is a chance to say you want to use things from an existing installation and later, when it comes to adding users) you can say you want to import your old user database. All very coonvenient.
Please look a bit around again. Play witth the different options. As long as you do not go further then that proposal, you can allways bail out of the installation without your disks being touched.
And, rather normal, apart from your normal backup of everything in /home, it is not bad to make an extra backup of all in /home before you start such a major chance to your system.
Thank you. I noticed that with KDE version, the installer allowed me to keep my /home partition. I have installed the 12.3 KDE version but upon logging in for the first time, I couldn’t get in. I tried a failsafe session and I was able login and it said “Have fun…” but then gave me a login prompt again immediately… I will reinstall again though…
What you will see is “Import Partitioning”. If you click that, a small screen will show up, showing your partitions as they were, a checkbox is checked for “format system volumes”, leave it checked, accept and you will see an “F” on the device line for the “/” partition, and a mountpoint /home for the partition with the homedirs of the users. AFAIK it’s on all live media, as a default part of the installer.
On 05/08/2013 03:46 PM, urbanomad64 wrote:
> I will reinstall again though.
a reinstall is unlikely to ‘fix’ whatever problem you had (this is not Windows® and seldom is a reinstall required to fix anything
other than a self-murdered system by a user with no clue, yet)
additionally, you can save home, but it is likely if you elect to use
the same user you will run into trouble because you will be retaining
all the configure files as they were set up in Arch…and as they
were probably damaged during or before that update which broke
everything!!
strongly suggest you don’t format home, but do NOT use the same
user…elect to make a new user, then when you get whatever is
causing the current problems fixed you can copy the data from the old
Arch user to the new openSUSE user…
by the way: if you do not have a good copy of all your data somewhere
NOT on the same machine, you are on a tight rope and in much danger!
i will never format anything on my machine until i have a safe,
off-machine copy of all my good stuff…
On 2013-05-08 16:07, dd wrote:
> On 05/08/2013 03:46 PM, urbanomad64 wrote:
>> I will reinstall again though.
>
> a reinstall is unlikely to ‘fix’ whatever problem you had (this is
> not Windows® and seldom is a reinstall required to fix anything
> other than a self-murdered system by a user with no clue, yet)
>
> additionally, you can save home, but it is likely if you elect to use
> the same user you will run into trouble because you will be retaining
> all the configure files as they were set up in Arch…and as they
> were probably damaged during or before that update which broke everything!!
>
> strongly suggest you don’t format home, but do NOT use the same
> user…elect to make a new user, then when you get whatever is
> causing the current problems fixed you can copy the data from the old
> Arch user to the new openSUSE user…
I agree to all that.
Alternatively, rename the old user directory to something else, then
recreate that user. The OP needs to start with fresh config files, or
things like KDE will act strangely, even crash.
> by the way: if you do not have a good copy of all your data somewhere
> NOT on the same machine, you are on a tight rope and in much danger!
> i will never format anything on my machine until i have a safe,
> off-machine copy of all my good stuff…
I agree too.
By the way, the XFCE 12.3 media on the opensuse.org site is not an
installation image. It is a rescue boot media only. To install XFCE you
have to use the DVD image or the network image.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)