1

I am new to Ubuntu and not particularly comfortable with systems in general. Please bare with me. Thanks for your patience :)

I tried Ubuntu on a virtual machine, and more recently, on a live version with persistent storage. I really like Ubuntu and plan on doing a full install soon. Since I have played around on the live version, I would like to keep what I did there when I do a full install.

  1. How do I do a full install in such a way that the system is as it is on the live version?
  2. Is it safe to do that knowing that I have downloaded some extensions and some software? I am asking because the live version does not require a password to install software. The software I installed is nothing esoteric or obscure, but still.

Thanks a lot.

user41101
  • 11
  • Someone suggested link but I think these are instructions for doing a full install on a USB drive. That's not what I want to do. I want to do a (regular) full install on my computer, but would like it to be a copy of my live version, if possible. For example, I have installed texlive (for LaTeX) and other software programs, and started customizing my desktop, and would love it if I could carry these over to the full install. – user41101 Nov 10 '20 at 05:40
  • 1
    Welcome to Ask Ubuntu: You can copy your home directory from a persistent system to an installed system and you can generate a list of installed programs. I have not heard of a method to copy installed programs from a persistent install to a fully installed system. – C.S.Cameron Nov 10 '20 at 05:52
  • Thanks @C.S.Cameron. If I understand, I would have to install Ubuntu on my computer, then copy over the system preferences and software from the persistent install. Correct? Assuming so, I do not know how to go about doing that. Perhaps I could make a copy of the entire persistent system (system snapshot) and then restore to that snapshot to the full install? – user41101 Nov 10 '20 at 07:01
  • As I recall the procedure below worked pretty good for me copying home from a Persistent USB to a fully installed system. I will see what I can find on reinstalling programs and add that later if I am successful. – C.S.Cameron Nov 10 '20 at 08:24

1 Answers1

1

Copy Home Directory Data from Persistent USB to Hard Drive

In order to preserve permissions etc, it is preferable to use rsync to copy the data from the Persistent drives home folder to the new internal drive,

I prefer the GUI version called Grsync, it is available from Ubuntu Software.

Everything saved on a persistent USB is located in the persistent casper-rw file or partition, including the home folder.

Grsync casper-rw File

Grsync casper-rw File

To access a casper-rw file, make a directory:

sudo mkdir /media/casper

and then mount casper-rw on it:

sudo mount -o loop /path/casper-rw /media/casper/

Where /path/ is the path to casper-rw file.

Path to file ~ /media/cscameron/xxx-xxx-xxx/casper-rw

Grsync casper-rw Partition

Grsync casper-rw Partition

The casper-rw partition can be accessed like any other partition.

Path to partition ~ /media/cscameron/casper-rw

Any programs that have been installed will need to be reinstalled but program data might exist in /casper-rw/upper/.

To list programs that have been installed using Apt run apt list --installed.

C.S.Cameron
  • 19,519
  • Wow! Thank you very much for your detailed answer @C.S.Cameron. More generally, it would be nice to have a way to go from persistent to full in one go, as I imagine I am not the only one trying things on a persistent install and then wanting to port that to a full install. Food for thought for the developers I suppose. – user41101 Nov 10 '20 at 19:56
  • You are riht about that, but it would not be an easy job. even the persistence filw writable does not work from one version to another. I find that copying home as above is ~90% of the job. – C.S.Cameron Nov 11 '20 at 02:34