Arch Linux

cpcp800

Member

Registered: 2016-08-31

Posts: 15

Dirty Reinstall

I have a desktop pc which currently runs ubuntu, since it was supposed to be a gaming rig and nothing else.
However, in covid-times i have started using the machine as a daily-driver for development. I need to get this machine to run archlinux.

Due to the rushed install of ubuntu, i haven't set up seperate partitions or anything on it, just a grub boot partition, and a root partition. To keep my documents/code/configs i want to avoid
formatting that partition. I came up with the following procedure, and i want to know if it's possible:

1. Boot into archiso environment and mount the partitions
2. Remove everything but /home from root
3. Pacstrap and continue the usual setup routine.

Will this work for me? Has anyone here tried something like this and knows of issues which might come from transitioning from ubuntu to arch like this?

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,520

Website

Re: Dirty Reinstall

That should work fine.

Of course you should have a backup of your data regardless of whether you are reinstalling or not.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

cpcp800

Member

Registered: 2016-08-31

Posts: 15

Re: Dirty Reinstall

That should work fine.

Of course you should have a backup of your data regardless of whether you are reinstalling or not.

Thanks for the second opinion. And while i will be doing a backup beforehand, i would like to avoid transferring my ~400 gigs of data through a usb 3 port. I could of course also clean up, but you know how it is

f33dm3bits

Banned

Registered: 2020-04-22

Posts: 32

Re: Dirty Reinstall

I have a desktop pc which currently runs ubuntu, since it was supposed to be a gaming rig and nothing else.
However, in covid-times i have started using the machine as a daily-driver for development. I need to get this machine to run archlinux.

Just a bit off topic but thought you should know. Before I switched to Arch, I was running Ubuntu as well. Since I switched over to Arch my gaming experience has gotten so much better. So if you have time left over in between developing you should still try out gaming under Arch

Last edited by f33dm3bits (2020-07-17 12:33:37)