Currently daily driver is KDEneon. KDEneon may fade away over the next year or so since most of the team is working on KDE Linux. I'm not interested in learning Arch (KDE Linux base) so I'm eventually moving back to Kubuntu. I've been lightly testing Kubuntu 26.04 in a QEMU/KVM VM machine for a couple months sort of waiting for the April release.
26.04 has been solid and I didn't want to go through the bare metal installation if I didn't have to. Since the Kubuntu install is using BTRFS I decided to try moving the subvolumes to my hardware and giving it a go. Here's the steps I took:
I now had the two Kubuntu 26.04 subvols on my bare metal system!
Next: I have an unusual setup because I currently have 3 Linux installs in subvolumes all residing on the same btrfs file system: KDEneon User edition, Kubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu server.
The Ubuntu server install I really only use to manage GRUB. Its job is to boot my PC and let me choose which other install to boot to. I have had up to seven installs at once available this way. So now I need only add 26.04 to the current list.
I booted into the Ubuntu server install to make some edits. First, I changed the 26.04 subvol names from "@" and "@home" by adding "@kubuntu2604" to each. Then I edited grub.cfg and fstab in the 26.04 install to reflect the change in UUID and subvolume names. Finally, I created an entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom in the Ubuntu Server install to add 26.04 to the list of boot choices and update grub - and rebooted.
Note that the 26.04 install had been using EFI on the VM but my main system is legacy boot - no EFI (by choice).
On initial boot, 26.04 dumped me into "recover" mode. After a few minutes I realized I had skipped one edit - a kernel boot option to disable "nvme multipath" because one of my 4 nvme drives has old firmware that doesn't support that and Adata isn't interested in supplying an update.
I added the needed boot parameter to /etc/default/grub, updated grub, edited netplan to use my preferred local fixed IP and rebooted to 26.04.
Voilà! 26.04 booted cleanly and quickly to the desktop! I updated the install and now it's running cleanly on my system.
The whole process took 10-15 minutes but that included adding 26.04 to my Ubuntu server (which I would had had to do in any case) and adding the forgotten but necessary kernel parameter.
So I avoided a "bare metal" install, moved away from EFI, and am several steps closer to moving to a new distro!
26.04 has been solid and I didn't want to go through the bare metal installation if I didn't have to. Since the Kubuntu install is using BTRFS I decided to try moving the subvolumes to my hardware and giving it a go. Here's the steps I took:
- Attached a high capacity USB thumb drive to the VM.
- Use "btrfs send" to send the to subvols (root and home) to the thumb drive.
- File-copied the subvols as files to my main btrfs file system on my hardware.
- Used "btrfs receive" to recreate the subvolumes from the files.
I now had the two Kubuntu 26.04 subvols on my bare metal system!
Next: I have an unusual setup because I currently have 3 Linux installs in subvolumes all residing on the same btrfs file system: KDEneon User edition, Kubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu server.
The Ubuntu server install I really only use to manage GRUB. Its job is to boot my PC and let me choose which other install to boot to. I have had up to seven installs at once available this way. So now I need only add 26.04 to the current list.
I booted into the Ubuntu server install to make some edits. First, I changed the 26.04 subvol names from "@" and "@home" by adding "@kubuntu2604" to each. Then I edited grub.cfg and fstab in the 26.04 install to reflect the change in UUID and subvolume names. Finally, I created an entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom in the Ubuntu Server install to add 26.04 to the list of boot choices and update grub - and rebooted.
Note that the 26.04 install had been using EFI on the VM but my main system is legacy boot - no EFI (by choice).
On initial boot, 26.04 dumped me into "recover" mode. After a few minutes I realized I had skipped one edit - a kernel boot option to disable "nvme multipath" because one of my 4 nvme drives has old firmware that doesn't support that and Adata isn't interested in supplying an update.
I added the needed boot parameter to /etc/default/grub, updated grub, edited netplan to use my preferred local fixed IP and rebooted to 26.04.
Voilà! 26.04 booted cleanly and quickly to the desktop! I updated the install and now it's running cleanly on my system.
The whole process took 10-15 minutes but that included adding 26.04 to my Ubuntu server (which I would had had to do in any case) and adding the forgotten but necessary kernel parameter.
So I avoided a "bare metal" install, moved away from EFI, and am several steps closer to moving to a new distro!