Zorin 5.2 and 5.2 Ultimate

Hey I have Zorin-OS (The basic version) on my notebook. I purchased the Ultimate version, and want to know how can I upgrade my notebook without wiping everything out?

Unfortunately you will have to save your data and carry out a fresh install.

Hi,

if you have seperate root and home partitions, just format the root part and don't format your home, you still need to mount home with "/home", select something else when doing the install and only format root!!. That way, you only lose root which is no biggy!!!!!!.

I assume you know how to partition, when using the installer of the new OS, select "Something Else" when asked where you want to install and select your partitions manually, lets say that your current root is sda5 and your home is sda6, select sda5 as root with ext4 and format, select sda6 as home with ext4 but NO FORMAT, that way, your data will remain intact!!.

Questions??.

Regards Wolfman

Thank you both for your comments. I was hoping that there was a "quick way" around that. I have all my data on an external drive, I was just hoping that it would be a "patch" or some way to update the OS without losing the updates I have done to the other programs. I think Im just lazy.

Wolfman wrote:Hi,

if you have seperate root and home partitions, just format the root part and don't format your home, you still need to mount home with "/home", select something else when doing the install and only format root!!. That way, you only lose root which is no biggy!!!!!!.

I assume you know how to partition, when using the installer of the new OS, select "Something Else" when asked where you want to install and select your partitions manually, lets say that your current root is sda5 and your home is sda6, select sda5 as root with ext4 and format, select sda6 as home with ext4 but NO FORMAT, that way, your data will remain intact!!.

Questions??.

Regards Wolfman

Wolfman would you care explaining this in a little more detail? (or maybe prepare a short guide and upload any screenshots?) It worths to be a sticky!
It sounds very interesting but I cannot clearly understand 100% how to do it.

Some of my questions are:
1) How can you know if you have root and home in separate partitions?
2) Will this create any system problems afterwords (that is, keeping the home but changing the root. Are these two not connected at all in any way?).
3) Can this be done also when changing from zorin 5 to zorin 6? (or only from zorin 5 to 5.2?). Will there be any kernel or gnome problem?

Thanks!

Hi MV,

if you did your own formatting prior to a previous install; you will know if you have the normal standard 3 partitions, root, home and swap.

With the aforementioned partitions you can tell the installer where you want to set your mount points, the first would be root (/)(forward slash is the mount point), the second would be your home (/home = mount point) and lastly; the swap (swap has no mount point).

Lets say that I want to install root to my partition sda12; I would tell the installer that I want to mount that part with "/" and as ext4 and mark it for formatting, lets say that I want to use sda13 as my home, I tell the installer that I want to use that as home with /home as my mount point and as ext4 but don't mark it to be formatted, that way, all my data will be kept intact, as long as you are updating the same OS to a higher number, it will overwrite any older config files but keep your apps safe as long as they work with that version of the new OS!!!!!.

Swarf has already pointed out that you must re-install the apps afterwards to use the same files, they too will overwrite any config files if the app is newer than the previous version!!.

See also:

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic172128.html

Regards Wolfman

Thank you both for your answers. Wolfman I am almost certain that I have the standard 3 partitions. I will double check when I get back home and I will upload a screenshot and we will continue from there. Again, I really thank you for your help.
I am just starting to prepare of what to do when Zorin 6 will be relased. Should I perform a fresh clean install or should I try your method...

madvinegar wrote:Thank you both for your answers. Wolfman I am almost certain that I have the standard 3 partitions. I will double check when I get back home and I will upload a screenshot and we will continue from there. Again, I really thank you for your help.
I am just starting to prepare of what to do when Zorin 6 will be relased. Should I perform a fresh clean install or should I try your method...

Hi MV,

as Zorin 6 is (will be) based on Gnome 3, the answer is that you will have to do a complete install because Zorin 5 is Gnome 2 and I would do a fresh install to avoid complications.
That said; I don't really know whether it would be safe to simply overwrite Gnome 2 with Gnome 3 config files, I will certainly do a complete install of both root and home when I install Zorin 6 over Zorin 5!!!!.

The original poster is updating a system that is compatible with the old one so he won't have a problem!!.

Regards Wolfman

Wolfman wrote:as Zorin 6 is (will be) based on Gnome 3, the answer is that you will have to do a complete install because Zorin 5 is Gnome 2 and I would do a fresh install to avoid complications.
That said; I don't really know whether it would be safe to simply overwrite Gnome 2 with Gnome 3 config files, I will certainly do a complete install of both root and home when I install Zorin 6 over Zorin 5!!!!.

My thoughts exactly... Thanx WM