Hi, This is my first post, and I have no openSUSE experience at all, so bear with me!
I’ve been running Fedora as my main OS since about 1998 and I don’t like the direction it’s headed, so I’m parting ways with it! It looks like openSUSE 13.2 might be what I’m looking for in a new distro. Anyway here’s my question:
Is it realistic (would it work) if I just reformat my root, /var, and /boot partitions (I would be using ext4) and install 13.2, leaving my current /home partition (also ext4) intact? Once I load up all the software from the openSUSE repo’s would it more or less work, or would I have to zip & tar all my data files and other stuff first, reformat /home as well, and bring them onto the newly created system that way?
Is there a better or simpler way to migrate from one Linux distro to another?
Other info, if it helps: I am/will be running KDE, the PC is a 2.5 GHz desktop with 4 Gb ram, static IP, I don’t use NetworkManager, Intel motherboard w/ integrated LAN and graphics. I also have an NVidia graphics card but don’t use it due to the hassle involved in getting it to work in Fedora. The sound card is a PCI Soundblaster Audigy. The PC is mainly used for engineering, CAD, and business apps.
More or less it should work.
What I’d do though is make a backup anyway. Perhaps especially of your current .kde4 hidden config dir.
That way you have access to kde config stuff you may need, even if you have to delete .kde4, you may be able to drag in element of that config
The way I do things is actually delete all my hidden folders and files (I keep a backup of only a few necessary things) then reconfigure the desktop after install, it often makes for far less trouble this way. But certainly no need to format /home
Amen to the .kde4 and any other hidden files in /home (typically starts with a period like .kde4).
From what I’ve seen Fedora’s KDE is very different than KDE on openSUSE (and the same for all other Desktops as well).
When you install openSUSE with KDE (and other apps), all those files will be re-created and you wouldn’t want any existing files to possibly mess with your new KDE.
Thanks for the replies. Food for thought. Perhaps it would be better if I scare up enough disk space to install 13.2 alongside my other distro so I can gradually play with it and configure it the way I want. This is after all my main pc. How much disk space would a typical workstation install take? Can I make it share the /boot partition with Fedora, or should there be all separate partitions for everything?
I really appreciate the guidance!
You don’t normally require a boot partition but no you can’t share it one. Though if you speak of the EFI boot yes all OS’s get entries there.
You can share swap if you do not hibernate. openSUSE default install will create a separate home partition. You don’t have to use one but it helps on upgrade or OS changes.
If you already have a separate home then you can use that but use a different user name so you don’t mix config files
Space depends. If you use the default BTRFS then you should allocate at least 40 gig. The reason is the snapper utility that take snapshots of the root partition periodical and before and after update. This allows roll backs. If you allocate less then 40 gig I recommend you turn off snapper or at least modify the frequency of snapshots since you may run out of space.
You can still specify using ext4 which is fine and you can get by with less the 20 gig for root partition if you are just playing 20-30 for more serious installation
If you do not use a separate home you need to allow for your personal space usage estimate in the root partition
Thanks, I’ll need to think a bit about this. I don’t use EFI boot, just grub2. The system is dual boot with winXP on a small second hard drive (sdb). There are three drives - sda, sdb, and sdc.
I’ve got about 40 gig unallocated on sda, which is where most of the other Fedora partitions are, although this 40 gig is in an extended partition and I think I remember something about not being able to install/run an OS completely inside of an extended partition like this - I’m not sure where I heard this or even if I’m confusing it with something else I read.
I have 136 gig available on sdc, which is a drive I added to hold music and videos. I didn’t want any OS files on here but I could use it for evaluation I guess, and then once I switch completely into openSUSE I can put it where Fedora is now.
The other thing I could do is shrink my /home partition. Since moving all my videos and music to sdc I’m only using 11% of a 300 Gb partition. But then again this is on sda where there are already 3 primary partitions and an extended, so if it’s true you can’t install an OS to an extended partition I can’t do that.
What are your thoughts on btrfs? Last I heard it was still considered experimental and kind of unstable…I was surprised when you said it was the default partitioning scheme.
Using the unallocated space for an openSUSE test install won’t hurt. It would make things easier to check whether the config files in the homedirs are in the same place. I remember one conversion (IIRC Fedora, but not sure) where I needed to move the files and folders in ~/.kde to ~/.kde4 to get it all working ( apart from a missing desktop background ).
BTRFS is fine seems very stable but it comes in openSUSE with a program called snapper which periodically takes snap shots of the root partition this is actually pretty compressed the way it is done but the snap shot schedule by default is very aggressive. So with less the 40 gig in root partition you can run into space issues after a time
No problem with the OS in a extended. With grub2 legacy you need to decide which os controls the boot and adjust things to suit. If You want RedHat to control do not install any grub but then you have to tell Redhat about openSUSE so it can be added to the grub boot menu. If in Redhat you use generic boot in MBR then tyou need to keep that and install grub to the extended and set a boot flag. Theer are many ways, it all depends on you requirements/wants. Let us know and some one can give you detail instructions
Should show us fdisk -l to see for our selves your layout. Otherwise we must guess.