any knowledgeable ubuntu users, I need help

[Rhetoric Camel]

hopefully if you clicked on this and read this you can give me a little assistance, here's my situation and what I want to do.

As of right now I'm dual booting windows xp and ubuntu 9.04. Windows is on the c drive and ubuntu is on my g drive. They are both on the same hdd just different partitions.
I have another hdd that I would like to install 10.04 onto and transfer over all of my settings (and files if possible) from 9.04 to the new installation of 10.04 on the new drive. Afterwords I'd like to uninstall 9.04 from the g drive and have that part of the partition back to continue storing programs and other files for windows.
Basically I want each operating system to have their own hdd but I would like to transfer my settings from 9.04 to 10.04

Is this possible? I don't have MUCH that I don't want to lose on my current ubuntu, my main issue was that it took forever to get the wireless internet router to work and it finally does and I don't want to have to go through that again. I also don't want to lose my sound system settings because that took FOREVER to get working properly, and honestly I don't remember how I did it now, it was so long ago.

So if this is possible a little guidance would be great. If it's not possible let me know, I'll just start over fresh and clean with a new beginning and tinker around until I get everything working again.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Whistle_Pig]

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to do this without too much trouble.

Couple caveats: I hate NetworkManager. A couple friends of mine initially had some trouble with wireless adapters on laptops, but were able to get things working. I don't recall the gory details of that. And, in general, Ubuntu is pretty aggressive rolling out new stuff, so even though I've had minimal problems, I always approach an upgrade with a small measure of trepidation. People I know who've upgraded have not, for the most part, reported any big issues.

Since you're already doing the dual-boot, I assume you are GTG with that piece of install / setup. Shouldn't be any different from the last time you did it, unless this you're migrating from GRUB to GRUB2. If that's the case, I recommend doing some reading on the subject.

Since you'll be installing to a new partition, you'll have your old /etc sitting there to refer back to for settings. You can try copying the appropriate config files to the new /etc locations, after making backups. I confess that I'm not a lot of help here on specifics, because I still wish my boxen were using SysV init instead of upstart, and plain old .rc files for the static config items. And I haven't dug into PulseAudio. Again here, since you're doing a new install, you don't really have to worry much about hosing it up, since you won't be overwriting your 9.04 install.

To copy your home directory over, I'd do something like:

Boot to your 9.04 and mount your 10.04 partition as something like /new.

$ cd /home/yournamehere
$ tar cf - . | (cd /new/home/yournamehere; tar xf -)
$ cd /new/home/yournamehere
$ chown -R you:you *
(where you:you is the userid:groupid of your login under the new install)

Do the above as root.
Or, as root, do a recursive CP to move your /home files over.

Also, look around for a Linux User Group in your area and see if they have a mailing list. Or join the Ubuntu forums. Or, join the CLUE-Tech mailing list -- we don't mind at all if you're not in Colorado. Here's a list of NY LUGs.

 

[Fire N Ice]

It would probably work if you created an .iso image of your ubuntu partition, copy it to your new drive, then do a direct upgrade to 10.04 (or you could upgrade first, then do the iso). Then you should be able to use gparted to clear out the original installation and expand your windows partition.

Edit: You may have to rebuild your Master Boot Record after doing this to regain the ability to select your OS, so you may want to read up on the subject.

 

[Whistle_Pig]

There's no need to do an ISO to copy an installed system to a new partition. I don't remember the exact steps, but you boot from a live CD, do the copy, then edit your grub conf to change the UUIDs in the boot stanzas. There's step-by-step instructions easy to find with a web search. Main thing is getting all the UUIDs correct for grub.

 

[Rhetoric Camel]

There's no need to do an ISO to copy an installed system to a new partition. I don't remember the exact steps, but you boot from a live CD, do the copy, then edit your grub conf to change the UUIDs in the boot stanzas. There's step-by-step instructions easy to find with a web search. Main thing is getting all the UUIDs correct for grub.

Thank you for all your help, I'll look into this and see what I can do... maybe I'll just do a fresh install and do a bit of tweaking to get it where I want it again on my new drive. Not sure if a few things is worth all the trouble... but I'll definitely look into it first.