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#1 2012-01-17 21:05:20

Roken
Member
From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

[SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

OK, after some teething troubles with Arch (Virtualbox solved, a problem with MySql - which turned out to be a single line in the config after 3 days of trying to fix it - Doh!) and a couple of other bits and pieces which I've battled through fixing, I'm starting planning for a complete jump.

I currently have Debian set up the way I like it, and where I've been able to re-use config files from Debian I've copied them across, so now my Arch Desktop is pretty much a clone (visually) of what I'm used to, and almost there with software that I need to install. I plan to play a little first, but Arch is generally faster on my system, so I'm planning on a complete jump to Arch in the future. I currently have my system set up as follows:

sda1 - /boot
sda2 - /swap (Debian only)
sda3 - /home (Debian)
sda4 - / (Debian)

sdb1 - Windows bootloader
sdb2 - Windows 7
sdb3 - Arch (The whole thing is currently installed on the one partition, / and /home, no swap in use, and uses the /boot partition on sda1)
sdb4 - Truecrypt partition for confidential work data

sdc1 - Data partition
sdc2 - Windows pagefile

The plan will be to move Arch from sdb3 to sda4 (after I remove debian) and to point /home to sda3 (without erasing anything there). I can copy config files from my current /home in Arch to sda3, preserving those customisations that don't migrate between the two easily, overwriting the same config files from Debian, but do I need to consider anything else in the /home partition (sda3) that, once mounted as /home from Arch is likely to cause any problems?

NB: I'm not asking for advise about re-assigning or mounting the drives/partitions themselves, I can handle that. Just for any "Gotchas" that may be lurking in migrating my Debian /home to Arch?

Last edited by Roken (2012-01-21 17:14:16)


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#2 2012-01-17 21:28:24

/dev/zero
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From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2011-10-20
Posts: 1,247

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

I would be more inclined to go for a route that involves backing up /home with cpio, installing Arch with a fresh /home, and extract from the back-up only the files I know I need. This way seems tidier and more controlled to me.

An example of a "gotcha" is that Arch uses Vim 7.3, whereas Debian is still Vim 7.2. I've noticed that some scripts I like using in Vim 7.2 now don't work on my Arch machine. Who knows what else could go wrong if you force Arch to use a Debian /home?

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#3 2012-01-18 01:17:29

Roken
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From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

Well, I already have vim up and running on Arch (it's my primary editor) - so the Debian config would be over-written anyway when I copy arch /home over the top of debian /home. but I'll reiterate your question, any other gotchas I need to think about?


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#4 2012-01-18 06:53:41

/dev/zero
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From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2011-10-20
Posts: 1,247

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

Roken wrote:

Well, I already have vim up and running on Arch (it's my primary editor) - so the Debian config would be over-written anyway when I copy arch /home over the top of debian /home. but I'll reiterate your question, any other gotchas I need to think about?

Well, I guess what I was trying to say was, to tell you all the gotchas would require telling you about all the differences in package versions used by Debian vs Arch.

There isn't anything necessarily different, but I've already told you about how sometimes there is a difference.

Feel free to go ahead and do it if you don't mind the risk that things won't work the way you planned. I doubt it will destroy your computer completely. If you go in expecting it to be a bit of a bumpy ride, you might be pleasantly surprised, or maybe you'll just get what you're expecting.

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#5 2012-01-18 11:48:14

Roken
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From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

Thank you. It's a good enough answer for me. I don't mind troubleshooting the odd issue that crops up provided there's no potentially fatal issues awaiting me smile


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#6 2012-01-21 17:14:01

Roken
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From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

I'm posting an update here to let you guys know how I got on (and the mistakes I mad on the way).

After fixing the "deal breaker" problems with Arch so that things were working as I needed, I fired up clonezilla and backed up my Arch, Debian, /home and /boot partitions to my Backup folder on my separate data drive. First mistake - I didn't check the space on the target drive and it bombed during the backup of /home (the other three were backed up before this). So first hurdle - make space. As it happens I managed to recover a massive 230Gb of space on the drive, which represents an accumulation of stuff passed on from drive to drive since my Amiga days 20 years ago. That done, the old /home was finally backed up.

Then I went through and cleaned up /home, removing obsolete config files and folders, formatted the Debian partition ready to receive Arch, fixed up fstab and burg.cfg with the new UUID (and the new mount points in respect of Arch's fstab) before copying the arch /home over the top. So far so good.

Then I set about copying the Arch / to the newly cleaned partition, and hit the next hurdle. It didn't like copying a running system and hung on /proc. Fired up a liveCD, reformatted and started again. At this point, I made two mistakes. One was forgetting that the UUID would change after formatting again, and the second was a brain burp with the cp command (I used cp -rPv when I should have used cp -rpv - but I didn't spot this until after). After it finished, I rebooted to the new system, which involved manually editing the UUID in burg to get it to boot (remember I'd forgotten it would change after I reformatted) to get to a sort of system, then fixing fstab to reflect the same change. Another reboot and the system booted, but I had some strange errors. Bluetooth was unavailable, mysql wouldn't accept connections, sudo was dead and a variety of commands complained about the suid. After starting to fix up permissions, it occured to me to double check my cp command which is when I spotted the P rather than the p. Back to the LiveCD, rm -rf on the new partition (I didn't fancy fixing up UUIDs a third time), and copied everything again properly.

One final reboot, and here I am. Everything is working and Arch is now happily sitting on it's own drive and my old /home documents are safe and sound and available.

Oh, I also gave arch the old swap partition, though Debian never touched it and I can't imagine Arch will, either.

I could have saved myself some time with a couple of basic checks along the way, but at least it can be done. If anyone else is planning on something similar the best advice I can offer is that "redundancy is your friend". Make a safe backup, and don't destroy anything as you go until you absolutely have to (For example, my old Arch partition is still intact and available until I'm satisfied that I don't need it)


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#7 2012-01-21 21:47:56

/dev/zero
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From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2011-10-20
Posts: 1,247

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

Well done, interesting to read :-)

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#8 2012-01-22 01:04:42

Roken
Member
From: South Wales, UK
Registered: 2012-01-16
Posts: 1,251

Re: [SOLVED] Time for a little forward planning

I did miss a step in the whole process as described above (only in describing, not in doing) which was that after I copied the Arch root filesystem to the new drive, I immediately went in and emptied the copied /home folder, since it would be just a mount point from here on.

I have hit one problem, which I'm not convinced can be fixed, and I'll post in another thread with that, but it's simply down to having to switch to OSS for more important sound server stuff and multiple soundcards (specifically, I use my webcams mic and my X-Fi output as rule, which seems to be a non-starter with OSS, but I could fix that with an inexpensive headset, so it's not the end of the world).

Apart from that, the migration has gone well. And if more proof is needed as to why Arch is a better option, I have a 64Gb / partition reserved, and Debian occupied 12.6 Gb. (This was down from a huge 32Gb LMDE installation previously doing just the same stuff). Arch is at 7.52 Gb and still doing the same stuff. Granted, I've probably saved a bunch of space as I've learned what I need, and what I can do without from gnome, even on an xfce desktop (which even in 2.30 tended to install stuff I either didn't need or didn't even know was there), but even so, from an original 32Gb root to a 7.52 Gb root is a massive economy IMO. I'm also starting to get used to the Arch package management (pacman and packer being my tools of choice), which if I'm honest has probably been the hardest change to make (I'm so used to apt that it was practically embedded in my brain, and synaptic was a daily visit. I've got the hang of querying and installing without the pretty front end, and I have to admit that the more I get used to it the more efficient it is.

Last edited by Roken (2012-01-22 01:06:16)


Ryzen 5900X 12 core/24 thread - RTX 3090 FE 24 Gb, Asus Prime B450 Plus, 32Gb Corsair DDR4, Cooler Master N300 chassis, 5 HD (1 NvME PCI, 4SSD) + 1 x optical.
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