Ubuntu – After a reinstall adding a home partition: Can I copy the old home folder to the new partition

home-directorysystem-installation

I run 16.04 on a combined system and home partiton. I plan a complete reinstall with a separate home partition. Is it a good idea to save my entire /home/myUser folder on external media and copy it back to the new home partition (overwriting files if they exist)?

Or should I just save user data like pictures, files I edited etc on external media. Also some selected "system" files? The only one I come to think of now is .vimrc. (And not overwrite any files.)

What problems/double work may occur in this process?

(Long ago I heard of procedures to create a separate home partition without using external media, but that is maybe an unnecessary risk?)

Best Answer

Yes! You can copy the old home folder to the new partition (via an external hard drive)

But... what about file permissions?

The issue is if your external hard drive is formatted for Windows incompatibilities, then it will not respect the file ownership and permissions when you copy them to the external drive.

For most files this will not matter. However, for some files like ssh private key, permissions are important and without the right kind of permissions the key will not work.

Solution 1

Format the external drive to ext4 the default format used by Ubuntu. The disadvantage is, all the data in the external drive will be lost when you reformat it to ext4. On the plus side, you will have an external drive specifically for transferring data between two Ubuntu (any Linux) computers.

Drag and drop or copy paste by Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V in Nautilus would only work if you are the only user of the computer, and there is only one user account (yours).

If the computer has other user accounts you want to copy using the terminal. Say your external hard drive is mounted as /media/$USER/USB2TB. Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and enter:

sudo cp -rp /home /media/$USER/USB2TB/home

Instead of the cp command you may want to use rsync like:

sudo rsync -aXS --exclude='/*/.gvfs' /home/. /media/home/.

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6339287/copy-or-rsync-command for various answers about difference between cp and rsync.

In all cases, remember to eject or Safely Remove the hard drive and WAIT till it is safe to unplug.

Solution 2

Use the default Backup software that comes with Ubuntu to backup your home folder. Make sure the backup target is the external drive. This ensures the ownership and permission data is preserved even if the drive is formatted FAT32 or NTFS.

Solution 3

Put everything in a compressed tarball. Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and enter:

tar czvf /media/$USER/USB2TB/myhomebackup.tar.gz /home/$USER

where $USER is your user ID for this computer. The tar options czvf does the following:

c creates a new archive
z filters the archive through gzip to make it compressed
v verbosely list files processed
f <name of archive> use archive file name <name of archive>

To overwrite or not?

Since this is the same machine, with no new hardware, I would overwrite the existing files. First, with a brand new install, there is no "real" data in your home folder. Second, overwriting the hidden files brings back the configurations, bookmarks etc. from your old install.

I find it easier to go through the hidden folders and files (the file and folder names that start with a .dot) later and delete the ones that are not needed. For example, if I don't need the program foo any more and did not install foo in the new installation, I would delete the folder .foo in my home folder. Even if I don't delete .foo it does not take up a lot of space. If I decide I need to use foo again some day, the config will be there.

Can it be done without a new install?

Yes! You can move the home folder to a new partition. There is an excellent guide about it at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving

I strongly advise that you make a backup (or two backups!) of your pictures, songs, or whatever you hold dear to your heart, before you try this.

Mistakes happens. If you make one, your data could be gone forever. So, be safe and keep at least two backups of important files before you try any of this.

Hope this helps

Related Solutions

How to Safely Copy Home Folder from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04

Yes, just copy over your home directory. These are the steps I would follow:

Make a proper archive on the old system.

cd /home
sudo tar -zcf username-archive.tar.gz username

Make sure that you use the same username on the new system.
Copy over the archive to the new system outside the home directory where we will unpack it to of course.
(Re)boot up the new system, but don't log in yet. This will make sure nothing will be running under your user account, depending on the contents of your homedir.
Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to go to a virtual terminal.
Log in, then become root fully, e.g.
```
sudo su -
```
Backup the almost empty homedir, e.g.
```
mv /home/username /home/username-old
```

Unpack it, e.g.

cd /home
tar -zxf username-archive.tar.gz

Ubuntu – Move `/home` to new partition

Don't feel bad, we've all been or are all still somewhat noobish at using the terminal. Also, love your use of the term right serious muddle.

All right, down to business :D

Question: Does your PC already have the /dev/sda7 partition created?

Answers:

1) As for how to move the /home partition permanently, read this guide https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving and this question: How can I move my /home directory to another partition if it's already part of the / partition?

from the guide:

This guide offers detailed instructions for migrating your home directory into its own dedicated partition.

2) Simple: (do all of this after the previous steps)

Just create the tarball on the original PC (seperate PCs, correct?) and move it over to your current PC with something like a USB stick or data CD.
Extract the tarball on the current PC in the /home folder while deleting the old files (keeping the ones you want, if any)