I love learning new things. 
I am having so many problems because of my old age and memory problems etc.
I will be re-installing UM 24.04.
I have backed up my documents and scripts to a 2nd hard drive.
I have 294 Gb free on my 2nd drive.
What do you suggest that would be good to back up?
Here is what I have.
Your passwords. Your addons. Your email contacts. Any music and pictures you want to save. Maybe your desktop layout. Any templates you use (I use glabels to make return address stickers).
Hi fixit7,
I just finished an upgrade to UM 24.04. Actually, I installed a new drive and did a fresh install. The old drive was my backup. It also allowed me to boot into the old system later if I had forgotten something (which I did). I did have to re-install all apps that do not come with the system by default. It was a fair amount of work, but the system is clean and fresh and ready for use until the next LTS comes around.
That is a little extreme, however. Without the drive replacement, I would have backed up everything in the /home directory, including hidden files. The admonition about being sure of passwords is a great one as well. And there may be some other detritus like an opml file for rss feeds if you use them, backups/exports for apps like Gramps whose new versions require a fresh import if you have such apps, etc. Lots of stuff to remember if you have been using your current system for a while.
The result for me was very nice. I really appreciate the UM team's efforts to create a useful desktop environment.
Oh, and please be aware that if you use any appimages they may complain under 24.04. I only had one, and I was able to invoke it with the "--no-sandbox" option to get around the new restriction.
Good luck.
I would like to offer a tactic to make the process easier to handle. It works for me, at least.
In order to keep things straight, and easy to identify when time comes for doing upgrades, I have a habit of keeping track of which system files I modified by having a set of 3 files for every file that is changed, as follows:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3393 Feb 7 17:39 /etc/default/grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3344 Jul 14 2024 /etc/default/grub.DISTRO
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3393 Feb 7 17:39 /etc/default/grub.OasisMega1
The last file, nomenclature ${file}.${hostname), is my customized version of the file. ${file}.DISTRO is the version delivered by the OS, "out-of-box". The file in its original location is the active version of the file, visible to the OS.
So, I do a find for all file *.OasisMega1, and can copy those directly onto the newly installed OS, after which I compare the old and the new for possible new entries which need to be "handled".
Performing
cd /etc/; find '*.Oasis*' -print | sort
gives me the following:
./apt/sources.list.Oasis
./crontab.allow.Oasis
./default/console-setup.OasisMega1
./default/grub.OasisMega1
./default/keyboard.OasisMega1
./default/sysstat.OasisMega1
./dhcp/dhclient.conf.Oasis
./fstab.OasisMega1
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/00_header.OasisMega1
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/00_header.OasisMega1.patch
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/00_header.OasisMega1.patch.PREVIOUS
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/10_linux.OasisMega1
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/10_linux.OasisMega1.patch
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/10_linux.OasisMega1.patch.PREVIOUS
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/30_os-prober.OasisMega1
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/30_os-prober.OasisMega1.patch
./grub.d.BK.OasisMega1/30_os-prober.OasisMega1.patch.PREVIOUS
./head.Oasis
./init.d/Oasis/cpufrequtils.Oasis
./init.d/Oasis/loadcpufreq.Oasis
./init.d/Oasis/spacenavd.Oasis
./initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume.OasisMega1
./issue.net.Oasis
./issue.Oasis
./lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/91-arctica-greeter-guest-session.conf.Oasis
./lightdm/lightdm.conf.Oasis
./lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf.Oasis
./lightdm/slick-greeter.conf.Oasis
./magic.Oasis
./mke2fs.conf.OasisMega1
./network/interfaces.Oasis
./pam.d/login.Oasis
./rc.local.Oasis
./recoll.Oasis
./resolv.conf.Oasis
./security/access.conf.Oasis
./smartd.conf.OasisMega1
./spnavrc.Oasis
./ssh/ssh_config.d/ssh_client.conf.Oasis
./ssh/ssh_config.Oasis
./ssh/sshd_config.d/sshd_server.conf.Oasis
./sudoers.Oasis
./sysctl.conf.Oasis
./sysstat/sysstat.OasisMega1
./systemd/resolved.conf.Oasis
./systemd/system/lightdm.service.d/override.conf.lightdm.service.OasisMega1
./systemd/system/sysinit.target.d/override.conf.sysinit.target.OasisMega1
./tail.Oasis
./vnstat.conf.Oasis
[Edit:]
Also, if you have any PPAs, you would need to keep track of those, but that should already be covered in the
/etc/apt/sources.list
Also, if you have packages that you downloaded directly as a tarball to compile/install in some custom location (like /Local, or /local, or /www and have the path to the startup commands for those added to you ${SHELL}'s PATH definition, you likely want to preserve those as well.
[Edit:]
One other thing: if you use any snap packages that you are attached to, make sure they have been fully proven-in for 24.04, before you do the distro install.
You can list those using:
snap list
You gave me some ideas.
Could I install UM 24.04 on a 298 Gb fat32 drive and still be able to copy files to it from my 2 Tb drive main drive ?
It has been awhile since I used Gparted.
That might work. Am not sure why gparted would be needed. Probably would need to change boot order on your machine. My first reaction is to reformat the the 298 GB drive to ext4, but am not sure what else you have on that drive. Am reluctant to say too much since I don't know the details of your situation. - My general rules are to keep things simple and never burn a bridge.
Gparted is needed to reformat the drive to ext4.
I backed up the 6 Gb of files that I had on it.
This is funny.
No problem with Celluloid, but it plays 2 songs at the same time.
Another reason I will be re-installing UM 24.02.
I changed the file system on my 2nd drive from fat32 to ext4 in anticipation of being able to
boot to 2 drives.
Since I have only 40 Gb on my phone plan, I asked my son-in-law to download UM 24.02.
As a THC user, his motivation is low.
Six hours after making a request to download the .iso, I am still waiting on a response.
Take care,
Andy