Oddly enough, I was having a thunk (as opposed to thinking!) last night and thought that I should add info about how to partition while using the something else method, I just need to grab an old HDD and do a few screen shots which could then explain how people can partition while installing, the only drawback being is that the partitions might not be recognised and a reboot would be needed!.
When I built my latest PC a couple of months ago, I decided to make it so upgrading was as painless as possible. I have a 250GB SSD for the OS and Swap. I have an 2TB hard disk for /home and just for good measure I also have another 2TB hard disk for backup.
I partitioned the SSD with Gparted so there was a small partition for booting, mounted at /boot/efi, a 16GB Linux Swap partition at the end of the drive, with the rest as Ext4 mounted as /
I had Ubuntu-Mate 15.10 x64 on this and yesterday, after copying the 16.04 ISO to a USB stick, I booted into the installer and chose āSomething Elseā. I left /boot/efi and the Linux Swap partitions alone and clicked āChangeā for the partition that contained 15.10. I selected āformat partitionā in there and mount to ā/ā.
I also clicked āChangeā on both 2TB hard disks and set them to mount as /home and /backup respectively.
I then proceed with the installation, which is very quick on the SSD drive.
Once finished, the PC is restarted and very quickly, I get to my login screen. I login then recreate the other users on my system (I created a list beforehand, ensuring they were created in the same order so that each gets the same User ID).
I then reinstall any software I had previously.
Because the personal settings for each user is stored in their home folders, the software just works. For example, Thunderbird is already configured because each userās settings are already there. This goes for other software too.
Very painless!
I prefer to do a clean install as I have had problems with upgrading in the past.
16.04 signing in with Live CD.
sha1sum checks out and ready to roll.
[quote=āwolfman, post:42, topic:5169ā]
ā¦I was having a thunk (as opposed to thinking!) last night and thought that I should add info about how to partition while using the something else methodā¦ ā¦only drawback being is that the partitions might not be recognised and a reboot would be needed!.[/quote]
Alternatively, consider a section using GParted to create partitions before beginning the installation process? I like this method as itās far simpler to understand a drives layout, and partitions are ready to roll as installation begins.
Hope you didnāt āthunkā too hard, heard it can be quite taxing?!
You mean something like this Dave?:
Great!
How about a GParted overview (with a link to your full GParted guide) added as a possible first step on your installation guide? Something likeā¦ Before you begin installation, if partition changes are neededā¦
Hi Dave,
it was actually at the bottom of the guide and I moved it to the top!.
Beware of using the āSomething elseā method with UEFI systems. It took me three times before I had a booting Ubuntu MATE 16.04. I was switching from the BIOS world. The first two tries was specifying ā/ā as the entire SSD without swap, the third attempt was unplugging my HDD data drive (ājust in caseā) and using the āErase diskā option ā then deleting the swap afterwards.
I havenāt grasped what I was missing, but it needs a (U)EFI boot partition and some additional steps if using āSomething elseā method on a new, blank UEFI system. Thatās a little something that the guides are missing.
I set up my SSD using Gparted prior to installation, creating /boot/efi, an EXT4 partition and Linux Swap. Then when I ran the installer (UEFI from a USB stick), I selected āSomething elseā and ensured the EXT4 partition was mounted as ā/ā. I already had "/homeā on another disk and just had to ensure it was mounted as that. Iāve done this a few times now and had no problems at all.
Thanks for sharing @Steve. I had another look at Ubiquity and just discovered there is an option to format a partition as āEFI System Partitionā, so that explains why it didnāt boot the first two times and where to set one on a clean UEFI system in future.
Iām surprised Ubiquity didnāt ask me āAre you sure you donāt need a EFI partition?ā like it does with swap.
Hi Luke,
thanks for the heads up, I have added this bit at the beginning of the guide as I personally donāt have any UEFI systems with which I can replicate the situation!:
People who have a PC/Notebook with UEFI, please see this link before commencing as it may be necessary to add a UEFI partition to your partition layout!!: