Migrate Ubuntu to a bigger disk on a laptop

[H.S.]

Asif Iqbal wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> I have ubuntu 8.10 running on my laptop. It is a 40gb disk. I want to
> upgrade it to 250gb drive.
> 
> I am thinking of doing the migration like this
> 
> 1. copy over my home dir to another machine on same subnet using tar/ssh

Yes, this is a necessary step. You might also want to copy /etc
directory (it has all the system configurations).


> 2. generate a list of all the pkgs and save it on a file on another machine

er, why? Is this something necessary?

If yes, you could do this:
 (to get the list of package installed)
$> sudo dpkg --get-selections  > /path/to/pkgs-installed.log

Then later after you have a minimal system installed, do
$> sudo dpkg --set-selections < /path/to/pkgs-installed.log
$> apt-get dselect-upgrade

(untested by me, search google before actually doing this).


> 3. boot from a liveCD and wipe the disk clean

If you *really* want to wipe it clean, lookup the 'shred' command. It
will destroy all the data (almost) and then you can delete the
partitions. Just using fdisk will *not* delete the underlying data. So
if your have confidential/sensitive data on the old hard disk, you will
need to use shred (or break the hard disk into smithereens ).



> 4. replace the 40g disk with new 250g disk
> 5. fresh install ubuntu 8.10
> 6. copy my home dir content back from remote machine

BTW, how many uses do you have in your current setup? I think if you
multiple ones, you may need to recreate those users in the new system in
the same order to keep their uid's same.


> 7. take the pkg list file from remote machine and pipe it through
> aptitude to install all the new pkgs

See above.


> 
> Am I missing anything?
> 
> Now what is the best way to do step 2 and step 7?
> 
> Also what is the best method of wipe clean a hard drive in step 3?
> 
> How do I make sure the rc scripts are setup same way? There are few
> apps where I ran
> the `sudo update-rc.d -f <appname> remove'. So the rc scripts are not
> at default state

When new packages are installed, they should be in their default/new
state. Just don't overwrite the older /etc/ to the newer one. Use the
older /etc as a reference and make changes to the newer one only if needed.

Good luck.


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