Kubuntu frozen and died

[werdigo49]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Personally, I don't recommend re-installing every time you have a problem. More often than not, problems related to your install will return and the act of re-installing wipes out any chance of figuring out what went wrong. Better to spend some time trouble-shooting and solving problems - then they don't return (or at least less likely to).

If your issue is hardware caused, re-installing is even less likely to help.

I usually agree with oshunluvr, and I also usually agree that re-installing Linux isn't the answer when one's having problems.
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If you upgrade, or re-install, simply choose NOT to format your /home partition and you won't lose anything that's on it. In addition to the above, I always also create a separate /data partition as a common storage area and, like /home, I don't format it when I upgrade the OS.

Thanks for this post! I've been keeping my /home partition for quite a while, but wonder what you keep in your /data partition.

The Kubuntu installer offers the options of identifying other partitions as /usr, etc., and not reformatting them. That sounds tempting but I guess one runs the risk of not correcting whatever problem led to the reinstall decision.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Splitting off the other directories (/usr, /bin, /var. etc.) is a hold over from days of smaller and slower hard drives. One could increase performance by using multiple drives and drive interfaces and you could easily combine small partitions into enough space for your install. Also, back then the software to expand an existing partition was delicate at best and failed often so if your install partition was nearing full it was safer to create a new partition and move /usr/local or /var to it rather than trust the partition expansion.

Now-a-days, it's rarely beneficial to do this as drives are way faster and huge in comparison. Occasionally, I hear of someone who keeps /var on a different partition so it can be easily wiped for security. I have also saved space on a multi-boot install by having /tmp separate and clearing it at each reboot or a /tmp separate for a system where you're are often creating very large temp files - like video editing.

Another development is this area are file systems that expand or contract to fit your needs (like btrfs and zfs) which reduce the need for partitioning and ease setup changes and backups.

I have two 2TB drives on my server that don't have a partition table at all in the normal sense. They are both fully used as a single btrfs file system. I think as the installers and backup tools develop to utilize the tools built into btrfs, we'll be having less and less discussions about partitioning and will be talking about subvolumes and snaphots.

My current desktop partitioning scheme has a separate /home for my main install (I call it my "daily driver" ) but space for four other installs. For each of them I keep /home on the install partition and link to my data folders. This gives me access to my data from anywhere, but keeps each distro's settings separate.

[sithlord48]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

most machines i set up have 3 partitions on a drive. (or two)
one for / (root) one for SWAP , and one for /home. some machines may have the /home partition on a drive by itself.on my server i have more partitions on top of that. several data partions that i mount i /media as well as a partition for /var/www.Saving your /etc folder while it might sound like a good idea i have found to be bad in practace. i only save from my /etc things like /etc/exports, /etc/samba/smb.conf and /etc/fstab*, if you have any stuff like NFS , SMB or LAMP you might want to save their configs.

*fstab only for clients, and i append the nfs shares to my new fstab after install.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

I usually keep a backup of the all files under /etc I have edited. Easy enough to detect them if you use kate - just look for files with the same name with one having a ~ in it.