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OK I am back! you have had a bit of peace.
When I created sda3 I formatted it to ext3 in anticipation of the original stuff in /home within sda1 in 8.04 which was also ext3. That may have been a wrong move. The present partitions are now as shown back a bit.
i.e. sda1 / ext3 There is an empty /home in here plus all the normal stuff.
sda2 swap
sda3 /home ext3 This /home is the one from 8.04 via 9.10
Much as you recommend but mine will have to be amended.
Can I correct what is now in the label for sda3 about /home and ext3 ? When I download a copy of 10.04.2 (recommended source please) I presume that I will have to reformat sda1 to ext3 to clear it out first, then try to find the method of nominating sda3 as /home for sda1. Then try to install from the CD. I hope that is in the right order.
Retire to easy chair and a pint to recover.
When I created sda3 I formatted it to ext3 in anticipation of the original stuff in /home within sda1 in 8.04 which was also ext3. That may have been a wrong move. The present partitions are now as shown back a bit.
i.e. sda1 / ext3 There is an empty /home in here plus all the normal stuff.
sda2 swap
sda3 /home ext3 This /home is the one from 8.04 via 9.10
Much as you recommend but mine will have to be amended.
Can I correct what is now in the label for sda3 about /home and ext3 ? When I download a copy of 10.04.2 (recommended source please) I presume that I will have to reformat sda1 to ext3 to clear it out first, then try to find the method of nominating sda3 as /home for sda1. Then try to install from the CD. I hope that is in the right order.
Retire to easy chair and a pint to recover.
Thanks HB & Jeremy, that all looks fine, I have looked at the link and 10.04LTS is available from it. I was worried that formatting sda3 to ext3 in the first place was cocking the whole issue up. Even thought of the possibility of creating sda4, not formatting it and trying to transfer the contents of sda3 into it and then scrubbing sda3...probably not sensible from what you recommend. Because it will be an install rather than an update this time, it should ask me for user-name and password this time and avoid my difficulty.
Cannot do all this now, charity lunch to attend, but may try this afternoon.
Cannot do all this now, charity lunch to attend, but may try this afternoon.
In case of trouble I have ordered 10.04.2 Desktop CD from Linux Store at £5. It is worth it at my download speed. Hope that I will give you the good news before long.
Is it all working now?
I have a couple of extra things for you that are worth doing...
I have a couple of extra things for you that are worth doing...
Hi Jeremy,
Got my nice new 10.04.2 disk at last. Been busy this week with a RAFA AGM and a Branch meeting to cope with (I am local Chairman for my sins). Also it is fine enough for a spot of the beginning of garden agriculture i.e. grass-cutting, bush trimming etc., all takes time.
I am trying to copy the contents of sda3 /home to a couple of thumb drives as two editions of a bang up-to-date back-up. I have tried to copy from file browser but it throws up some permissions denied & stops. I seem to remember many posts ago letting me use "sudo nautilus / " to give me root privileges which ought to deal with this, I have not hit upon the right file address to use so far to make it work. What is the right mantra?
I will be very interested in the couple of things are when I get a bit further.
Regards,
C.
PS: My sda1 with the upgraded 10.04.2 put a /home in it which does not contain any of my data in it, largely folders named but empty. Will the new install put one in it or will the presence of the unformatted sda3 labelled /home put it off? or do I have to delete it before going further?
Got my nice new 10.04.2 disk at last. Been busy this week with a RAFA AGM and a Branch meeting to cope with (I am local Chairman for my sins). Also it is fine enough for a spot of the beginning of garden agriculture i.e. grass-cutting, bush trimming etc., all takes time.
I am trying to copy the contents of sda3 /home to a couple of thumb drives as two editions of a bang up-to-date back-up. I have tried to copy from file browser but it throws up some permissions denied & stops. I seem to remember many posts ago letting me use "sudo nautilus / " to give me root privileges which ought to deal with this, I have not hit upon the right file address to use so far to make it work. What is the right mantra?
I will be very interested in the couple of things are when I get a bit further.
Regards,
C.
PS: My sda1 with the upgraded 10.04.2 put a /home in it which does not contain any of my data in it, largely folders named but empty. Will the new install put one in it or will the presence of the unformatted sda3 labelled /home put it off? or do I have to delete it before going further?
Starting with the P.S.
Provided that you are doing a MANUAL install and that you decline any offers to use sda4, nothing will be written to it.
I would use gparted from the CD to delete it - just before you do your reinstall.
Don't delete sda4 until just before you are ready to proceed with a reinstall.
Currently, Ubuntu thinks /home is sitting in sda4 - but it's actually in sda3
So you need to mount /sda3 manually - to do this:-
Each time you boot your PC (and want access to sda3)
Then do any file operations against the /media/HOME3 directory - such as
Note that when you access or change /media/HOME3 you are actually accessing sda3.
Before you shut down, don't forget to unmount sudo /media/HOME3 using
Note that the unmounting command is spelt as umount
Provided that you are doing a MANUAL install and that you decline any offers to use sda4, nothing will be written to it.
I would use gparted from the CD to delete it - just before you do your reinstall.
Don't delete sda4 until just before you are ready to proceed with a reinstall.
Currently, Ubuntu thinks /home is sitting in sda4 - but it's actually in sda3
So you need to mount /sda3 manually - to do this:-
sudo mkdir /media/HOME3(Do this only once, as this will remain until you overwrite your / directory).
Each time you boot your PC (and want access to sda3)
sudo mount /dev/sda3 /media/HOME3
Then do any file operations against the /media/HOME3 directory - such as
sudo nautilus /media/HOME3
Note that when you access or change /media/HOME3 you are actually accessing sda3.
Before you shut down, don't forget to unmount sudo /media/HOME3 using
sudo umount /media/HOME3
Note that the unmounting command is spelt as umount
Glad to hear you can access sda3 more easily!
During the install, you tell Ubuntu sda3 is /home - but you must not format it.
Since Ubuntu sees sda4 it will ask what you want to do with it.
When you use nautilus, set it to show hidden files and you should see loads of directories and files that begin with a dot.
You should see quite a few of these in sda4 too.
These small hidden files are used to hold things such as your personal preferences etc.
After the install, if you try to use a 9.10 /home in a 10.04 install (which will have a few different programs), you may get some strange behaviour.
However, if you tell the new install what actual /home (with the data) it will be using, it can update some of the important files in there;
it will also construct the correct /etc/fstab file so that sda3 gets mounted at boot time etc.
Please do not copy old versions of /home around in their entirety, unless something disastrous has happened.
Keep old backups of /home on a separate USB drive - multiple /homes on one disk will cause confusion - especially if they are different versions.
During the install, you tell Ubuntu sda3 is /home - but you must not format it.
Since Ubuntu sees sda4 it will ask what you want to do with it.
When you use nautilus, set it to show hidden files and you should see loads of directories and files that begin with a dot.
You should see quite a few of these in sda4 too.
These small hidden files are used to hold things such as your personal preferences etc.
After the install, if you try to use a 9.10 /home in a 10.04 install (which will have a few different programs), you may get some strange behaviour.
However, if you tell the new install what actual /home (with the data) it will be using, it can update some of the important files in there;
it will also construct the correct /etc/fstab file so that sda3 gets mounted at boot time etc.
Please do not copy old versions of /home around in their entirety, unless something disastrous has happened.
Keep old backups of /home on a separate USB drive - multiple /homes on one disk will cause confusion - especially if they are different versions.
It would seem that you told it to use free space (i.e. sda4) for /home, instead of sda3.
DON'T clear sda3, DON'T format sda3, just say use sda3 in it's present condition as /home.
If you format a partition, then you will wipe it of all it's data.
You should not need to restore any backups.
Because you are signed in as user collin, a few files are in use and locked out - .dbus is O.K., you can ignore that.
However your home directory is /home/collin do you have a /home/collin/collin directory?
Why not just copy the /home directory to your USB drive - that will copy all data?
Ubuntu doesn't need a sda4 partition - although it will use it, if you tell it to.
It only used a separate partition for an empty /home because you told it to create one.
DON'T clear sda3, DON'T format sda3, just say use sda3 in it's present condition as /home.
If you format a partition, then you will wipe it of all it's data.
You should not need to restore any backups.
Because you are signed in as user collin, a few files are in use and locked out - .dbus is O.K., you can ignore that.
However your home directory is /home/collin do you have a /home/collin/collin directory?
Why not just copy the /home directory to your USB drive - that will copy all data?
Ubuntu doesn't need a sda4 partition - although it will use it, if you tell it to.
It only used a separate partition for an empty /home because you told it to create one.