Old Ubuntu Install Upgrade

[James Grossmann]

I'm working on a computer for a friend here in Ashley, who has been
using ubuntu for quite a while now. He isn't a power user, but
someone where he used to live turned him on to it, and he really likes
it. I'm upgrading him to a new computer (his old one got struck by
lightning), and would like to do a fresh install of ubuntu, copying
his settings from his previous install (his hard drive was not
destroyed, but is in my opinion at least untrustworthy). Is there a
decent way of doing this? I'd also like to upgrade him to 64bit from
his previous 32bit.
Thanks,
James

[Dan Falconer]

If we're talking about personalized settings, the way I've always done it is just to backup the home directory from the old machine (i.e. tar + gzip) and then restore it to the new computer.  Just make sure user + group is set (recursively) for the new machine, since UID/GID might change, and you're good to go.  Since the upgrade is probably going through some major versions, there will probably be some SNAFU's along the way, as config files (and directory structures) have probably changed slightly... the biggest change I've gone through with this method is one major version (i.e. 8.04 -> 9.10, 9.10 -> 10.04, etc).

Backing up more exotic things like Apache, PostgreSQL, etc are more involved, but I'm guessing (since they're not a power user) that it isn't an issue.

If you have specific issues with specific programs, I'll try to help however possible, and I'm sure the other LUG members could help too.

--
Best Regards,


Dan Falconer
http://www.CrazedSanity.com || http://www.Buzzkill.org

[James Grossmann]

Thanks, that seems to have done most of the job, I'm always a bit
hesitant to copy the /home directory to a new install, I've had
problems with that before, but not really here. I'm running into one
more problem. they have numerous video files, some in avi, mp4
format. When I play them, I get a very washed out (white) showing, I
haven't had time to research this, yet.
But I wanted to say, Thank You, that's got me a lot closer to where I
want to be.
James

[Robert Hart]

If you hook up the medibuntu repository then you get some fun and useful
stuff like skype, google earth and w64codecs ;-)

[James Grossmann]

I had installed medibuntu repositories, actually using the
comprehensive multimedia & video howto:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683
One More Question:
Someone posted around Christmas about taking an old windows install
and visualizing it (I believe as part of a Christmas computer
upgrade), This project also includes ideally offering a couple of
programs on a virtual xp machine, and they have a ready made license
from their old computer, so I thought it would be a perfect
opportunity to just virtualize and go. I have been using virtualbox
in my own office, I forget what was being used in that post, I'm not
really picky which I use.
Thanks again,
James

[Dan Falconer]

I was actually the one that did the virtualization of an old computer for Christmas. I'll warn you, I probably didn't do it the most efficient way, but it worked.  I used VMware for the system, though I think I probably would have been better off with VirtualBox.

The process, in a nutshell:

1. use dd_rescue (ddrescue) to make an exact image of the old hard drive onto another device (i.e. a thumb drive)
2. create the virtual machine, try to match specs as closely as possible wherever possible (probably not much choice), make sure the HDD is at least as big or bigger than the old one.
3. write the old image to the new drive
4. start the VM, try not to pull hair out as Windows starts freaking out about hardware changes (probably a good idea to make a snapshot)

A note of interest regarding dd_rescue and the disk images: if it is written to a file, that file can be mounted and viewed (sudo mount -o loop /path/to/image.dd /mnt/disk_image).  It's a great way to have a backup of the whole machine without having to pick through the entire filesystem to find those scattered documents/images/whatnot.

[James Grossmann]

Thanks very much for the dd_rescue idea, that's very helpful (had a
few disk errors). As well, I've been following a plan from
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows , which has been
helpful. One thing that was not helpful was assuming that there
actually was a Windows install on the system. There was an ntfs
formatted original disk, a directory for "documents and settings," but
I didn't look all the way down the directory listing to see if there
was actually a windows directory. After a lot of fighting to get it
to boot, I found out there was not. I can only assume that the ntfs
partition was for interoperability? I can think of filesystems I'd
rather use. I would now like to figure out an ethical way to install
winxp (home is what they have a license for) on their virtual machine
without OEM disks and with an oem license. (they also have a license
for vista (which originally came on their laptop), but I can't imagine
doing that in a virtual machine, and isn't there something about that
not being licensed for vming?) Aaah the wonders of micro$oft.

How about Oracle suing Google about android? I knew something like
this would happen when that merger took place.

Thanks,
James

[Dave McCarty]

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I have a WinXP Home disk that I use for VM'ing based on licenses I
already own. I can either burn you a copy or I can loan it to you.

When Vista fisrt came out there was a lot of talk about the fact that it
was not licensed for Virtual Machine. I don't think that ever was ever
changed. There are lots of site on how to create virtual images on Win7
but I'm not sure it is licensed for that either.

Dave M

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[Matthew Lengenfelder]

I believe windows 7 pro and ultimate are, windows 7 home premium isn't licensed for installing it into a virtual machine.

Matt L.

[James Grossmann]

I downloaded a WinXP home cd from torrent...It claimed to be original
with the sp3 installed. I'm a little concerned about security on it,
however it doesn't like the OEM key on the computer, which to me means
it's at least somewhat original. I don't know.
I haven't messed with Vista much before, but it's interesting that it
takes way more than a minute to get to a working screen, and under
ubuntu, it's just seconds... Very nice.

James

[Eric Wanchic]

Yes, it WAS true that Vista in the beginning was not licesned to run in a virtualization environment, in the beginning. But later revisions relaxed on that, and instead reinforced the caveat that if you do visualize Vista, to summarize, then stay away from anything DRMed/microsoft encrypted. Which means no playing DVDs, no playing media player/center, no encrypting your partition with M$s technology. IMHO, I think that's fair.

Eric

[Eric Wanchic]

There are actucally 3 WinXP iso copys I've come in contact with, and
this would be the fourth. WinXP Orginal, SP2, & SP2c. If your key
doesn't work, I'd bet SP2 would. Then you have to upgrade to SP3, to be
legal and all that....

Eric

>>>>>> comprehensive multimedia& video howto:

[James Grossmann]

Thanks, Eric! I'll give that a try.
James