Arch Linux

hhyloc

Member

Registered: 2010-07-26

Posts: 2

[Solved]Move from Ubuntu to Arch

Hi!
I has been using Ubuntu for quite sometime now, then I heard about Archlinux, so I decided to give it a try, the problem is: Is there any way to switch to Arch without delete all my old data in /home ? (I don't plan on dual-boot)
Thanks in advance

p.s sorry for my bad English

Last edited by hhyloc (2010-07-27 02:31:57)

Skripka

Member

From: 2X1280X1024

Registered: 2009-02-19

Posts: 555

Re: [Solved]Move from Ubuntu to Arch

In short yes.  Presuming that you put your ~/ on a partition separate from your root partition.

It is also wise to always have at least 2 good backups of all your data anyway in case you hose something.

72linus

Member

From: gordonsville,va

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 144

Website

Re: [Solved]Move from Ubuntu to Arch

You could simply compress /home/your-user-name and /root if you want..
tar.gz each, put it somewhere safe and then install ARCH

Also, here's a great ARCH install method for newbies
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … es-821902/

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [Solved]Move from Ubuntu to Arch

Compressing the home folder and it putting it back after installing Arch is the most flexible way I think. Still:

If you keep /home on its own partition, you can just leave that partition untouched and tell arch to mount your old /home into the system, while reformatting the / partition.

If you have / and /home on the same partition, you could a) delete everything but /home on that partition, move everything inside the /home folder one up into the root directory, tell arch to mount that as /home and create a new partition for /,  or b) delete everything but /home, keep it untouched while partitioning and tell the arch installer to mount it as / without specifying a separate partition for /home.

In general I would not keep the config files, not only because its untidy but if there have been changes in the config files syntax between the  ubuntu and (presumably newer) arch versions of apps, there would be trouble. You could just move all dotfiles in a seperate folder to still save them.

And whatever you do, do backups first

Last edited by hokasch (2010-07-26 13:14:19)

hhyloc

Member

Registered: 2010-07-26

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved]Move from Ubuntu to Arch

ok I think I got it now
Thanks!