Clean install of Mageia 9

[Ar]

I am looking in to doing a clean install of Mageia 9 instead of updating
8, Asking a "stupid" question because I don't remember as it's been many
years since I last did a clean install.. and also because it's a first
try using a M.2 drive instead of a regular SSD.

/home is on a different hard drive. If I do a clean install, will the
installation find /home, or do I have to tell it where it is? Will it
also work out the UID I set for the various users. Do I have to install
the users names and passwords of /home manually all over again? I will
disconnect all other drives and add them in manually to FSTAB after the
install.

Thanks.

[David W. Hodgins]

Post by Ar
I am looking in to doing a clean install of Mageia 9 instead of updating
8, Asking a "stupid" question because I don't remember as it's been many
years since I last did a clean install.. and also because it's a first
try using a M.2 drive instead of a regular SSD.
/home is on a different hard drive. If I do a clean install, will the
installation find /home, or do I have to tell it where it is? Will it
also work out the UID I set for the various users. Do I have to install
the users names and passwords of /home manually all over again? I will
disconnect all other drives and add them in manually to FSTAB after the
install.

Before you start, make note of the uid used for users.

In the partitioning step create the partitions you want on the nvme drive,
and select the partition to be mounted as /home. Make sure you remember to
uncheck the option to format the /home partition if you want to keep it's
contents.

Use the same uid for each user created during the install as they had in
the existing /home.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

[William Unruh]

Post by David W. Hodgins

Post by Ar
I am looking in to doing a clean install of Mageia 9 instead of updating
8, Asking a "stupid" question because I don't remember as it's been many
years since I last did a clean install.. and also because it's a first
try using a M.2 drive instead of a regular SSD.
/home is on a different hard drive. If I do a clean install, will the
installation find /home, or do I have to tell it where it is? Will it
also work out the UID I set for the various users. Do I have to install
the users names and passwords of /home manually all over again? I will
disconnect all other drives and add them in manually to FSTAB after the
install.

Before you start, make note of the uid used for users.
In the partitioning step create the partitions you want on the nvme drive,
and select the partition to be mounted as /home. Make sure you remember to
uncheck the option to format the /home partition if you want to keep it's
contents.
Use the same uid for each user created during the install as they had in
the existing /home.

I believe /home is not on the nvme drive. It is on some other drive.

One problem with a clean install is that you must re-setup all of the
configurations that you originally had. /etc/fstab /etc/passwd
/etc/shadow are only some of them. /etc/shorewall, /etc/cups,
/etc/chrony*, /etc/sysconfig, ....
Now some you may not mind recreating since things have changed, others
you have long forgotten because they just work, and now will not just
work, but need to be set up again.

Post by David W. Hodgins
Regards, Dave Hodgins

[faeychild]

Post by William Unruh
One problem with a clean install is that you must re-setup all of the
configurations that you originally had. /etc/fstab /etc/passwd
/etc/shadow are only some of them. /etc/shorewall, /etc/cups,
/etc/chrony*, /etc/sysconfig, ....

Yes This is why I delay my install as long as possible.
Also some settings move around or disappear from "Control Center" and
"System Setting"

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by faeychild

One  problem with a clean install is that you must re-setup all of the
configurations that you originally had. /etc/fstab /etc/passwd
/etc/shadow are only some of them. /etc/shorewall, /etc/cups,
/etc/chrony*, /etc/sysconfig, ....

Yes This is why I delay my install as long as possible.
Also some settings move around or disappear from "Control Center"  and
"System Setting"

Which is one of the reaons I went to a "Rolling Release" and we
still have those sorts of problems but re-installation is relativly
rare. Usually the missing parts of the PCC and KDE System Settings
can be worked around and the PCLinuxOS Forum can generally help.

Good luck to all the distros that started with Mandrake.

bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2023.12- Linux 6.5.13- Plasma 5.27.10

[faeychild]

    Good luck to all the distros that started with Mandrake.
bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2023.12- Linux 6.5.13- Plasma 5.27.10

Dead Right Bobbie. Happy New Year

[Daniel65]

Post by Ar
I am looking in to doing a clean install of Mageia 9 instead of
updating 8, Asking a "stupid" question because I don't remember

Back in the 80's and 90's, I used to teach Electronics to Apprentices
.... and one thing that I really tried to hammer home was that "The only
stupid question is the unasked question"!!

I don't know if it sunk in or not! ;-P

[William Unruh]

Post by Ar
I am looking in to doing a clean install of Mageia 9 instead of updating
8, Asking a "stupid" question because I don't remember as it's been many
years since I last did a clean install.. and also because it's a first
try using a M.2 drive instead of a regular SSD.
/home is on a different hard drive. If I do a clean install, will the
installation find /home, or do I have to tell it where it is? Will it

No it will not find home. It will make a directory called /home, and put
your one account into that. But afterwards you can do
put in a line into /etc/fstab to mount your home onto /home. Or you can
move away /home (mv /home /home.orig) and then link to where you put the
home (eg ln -s /local/home /home)

Post by Ar
also work out the UID I set for the various users. Do I have to install

You will have to transfer the bits of your original /etc/passwd which contain the
users ids to /etc/passwd
awk -F: ' $1>999 {print $0} ' /old/passwd >>/etc/passwd
(where /old/passwd is wherever your old password from Mga8 was saved,
and 999 is one less than the lowest user uid you defined in /etc/passwd)

Note that the files in /home know absolutely nothing about user names.
They only know about uids.

Post by Ar
the users names and passwords of /home manually all over again? I will

The passwords are in /etc/shadow. They are listed not according uids but
according to use names. So make sure you save the /etc/shadow file
somewhere and replace the /etc/shadow file in Mga9 with that old file.

Post by Ar
disconnect all other drives and add them in manually to FSTAB after the
install.
Thanks.