I currently have a number of laptops and pcs with Linux Mint Cinnamon Victoria or virginia installed They were put on the 500 gb drives with images of Linux Mint using restore in Image for Linux with Victoria then updated when installed to Virginia. Although the drives don't have a lot of data on them they do contain some third party programs. When I try to install from the Image for Linux images to a smaller drive it won't allow, saying that the drive is not large enough. I don't want to re-install my software but I would like to move up to the latest linux mint version but keep my settings and software intact. I don't see an option to upgrade from my current versions to latest. My question is can I install a clean version of the latest Mint and keep my settings and software including my playonlinux windows progs and Bottles progs. If I could do that then I wouldn't need a 500 gb drive and I could slot my programs and preferences in after the installation without the rejection of Image for Linux of a smaller drive problem and the jump of version from Virginia to latest Linux Mint version problem. Basically I want to keep my settings and software ..upgrade to smaller drives and use the latest Mint without a hop version block. I hope that this makes sense. I'm no Linux expert.
I'm not sure about Linux Mint upgrade, as I didn't use this distro. When it comes to moving to smaller drive my thinking goes like (there may be easier options): 1. Identify currently used filesystems (ext4, xfs, btrfs, others) 2. List options for shrinking each of them: some can be shrinked online while others require boot from live CD/live usb. Do the shrinking for each for them. Each filesystem family have their own dedicated tools for that. 3. I'm not sure how Image for Linux would handle gaps between partitions - experiment? If it won't end well it may require moving partitions and associated data If you have only one filesystem you won't have this problem 4. Copy to other drive
@Brian K I think it's MBR...I use 'legacy' when I can. I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs yet as I'm fairly newbie to Linux. I had a big problem after a good start (got overconfident) to Linux Cinnamon Mint where nothing would install after a 'mangle' taking me to a 'repair' screen which I couldn't manage or get past and have been over cautious and tentative ever since and just installed any new pc laptop with one disk image using ImageforLinux. That pc with Mint 'crash' was unusable after that episode. I don't know what happened. Nothing within my range of knowledge would work. Linux wouldn't re-install. I could only run Knoppix from external DVD after that. I could install the new Linux Mint version but I don't want to lose my configuration and 'third party' software configuration, updates or Windows applications running from within Wine, Playonlinux, Bottles That's how I've fallen behind and all my extra software is installed on the older version image. I keep generally updated but gap in operating system update.and just have the old backup image saved drive as my start point up to now. I'd still like the option to upgrade with fully saved settings rather than start with a clean installation. I have quite a lot of pcs and laptops that I need to upgrade so it might be a massive job. It's quite hard to keep them up to date as it is and very time consuming.. re partition work Yes I have bootit bare metal which comes with image for linux. Just not familiar with all the partition options and new hard drive stuff UEFI etc.. @reasonablePrivacy Thanks for your comments.
sdmod, Does this sound reasonable? Try this on the least important Linux OS. Create an entire drive image. A backup. Not a partition image. Using PartWork in IFL, Resize the linux partition smaller, to your desired size. If Linux doesn't boot, fix the file system. Boot into IFL... Open a Terminal, blkid to find the partition ID. For example /dev/sdaX Still in the Terminal, fix it with... e2fsck -vfy /dev/sdaX Does Linux boot now? Upgrade to ver 21.3 if it's a lesser version. Upgrade to ver 22 Upgrade to ver 22.1 https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/upgrade-to-mint-22.html Create an entire drive image. Remove the 500 GB drive. Install a smaller drive. Restore this image to the new smaller drive.
Does that mean you have a variety of different programs on the different drives Also, why do you want to upgrade from 21.3? Although this should be a seamless operation there are countless horror stories about the move. https://www.google.com/search?q=Upgrade from 21.03 to 22 -Known issues
I will say that doing the upgrade to 22.1 was amazing for a Cinnamon user. It lets you depart from the "minty" stuff to the generic Cinnamon setup with a few button clicks. The Desktop looks so frickin nice and "current". Once you see how nice and fresh it lays out your older Cinnamon version will seem cryptic. Just my .02
Thanks for everyone's help on this . Palancar longshots Brian K @longshots The drives I am trying to upgrade all have the same data and programs. 'Also, why do you want to upgrade from 21.3' The reason I wanted to upgrade. I am happy with my current setup and configuration and software running on Linux Mint 21.3 but I am afraid if I got too far behind changes might occur that would lock me out somehow.. I generally update through update manager but I find that process quite tiring in older age. I sort of hoped that with a fresh install of the new version that it would ask me if I wanted to keep my software and settings as it recognised that there was a Linux Mint already installed. As said, I'm happy with the system that I have currently, I just wanted to keep abreast with current good things that an upgrade might bring.
That simplifies matters. You only have to run my instructions on one computer. Then create an entire drive image of that drive and restore the image to the new smaller replaced drives in each laptop. Out of interest, I have Mint 22.1 on a UEFI computer. A multi-boot install. A partition image was created with IFL. The image was restored to a different computer. A MBR computer. The OS booted to "grub-rescue". Grub 2 was installed to the partition boot sector and Mint booted. You shouldn't have the Grub issue as you aren't starting with a UEFI partition.
Yes, it does make things easier. If they are all identical why not just upgrade one of them? I have 21.3 on one drive and 22.1 on another. I do use a separate data drive so that is accessible from whichever OS drive I'm using. Also, is there something special about the "variety of different programs" you are using that prevents you from re-installing them if things go haywire?
longshots, In my UEFI computers, 21.3 no longer boots when Secure Boot is enabled. Do you have the same situation?
Also and just so you can relax while doing this: Use Timeshift backups before the upgrade and if anything goes wrong you are backup and running in seconds. Timeshift has saved my "bacon" more than once. What a God send to a linux user!! I have actually never thought of this before but I wonder if you could install your system on the larger drive making sure it works perfectly and then simply do a Timeshift backup. Then you could use the Timeshift backup and write it directly to a new drive --- which could be smaller. If you use encryption - LUKS - on your system disk it won't work because the geometry isn't handled well by Timeshift. I use Macrium Reflect to write back the geometry ---UUIDs, etc.... and then I write the Timeshift backup to my disks and it always works perfectly. BUT --- I have never had the need to use a smaller drive. Just thinking out of the box here. ps - Timeshift does work perfectly with LUKS backups IF you are writing the saves back to the same disk geometry, which contains all the LVMs, UUIDs, etc..... Hope I didn't confuse you.
Thanks everyone for the great advice and comments on upgrading Linux Mint (which I'll make a note of). After some thought and the new version Mint being an unknown to me, I decided to just install the new Linux Mint on a single laptop. I had previously tried to 'upgrade' from lesser version but about half way through met with an unusual instruction that I didn't understand how to remedy and so I used Timeshift to go back. This time I downloaded the iso and burnt it to DVD and booted into Mint from the dvd and chose to install which is there to see on the screen when running from the dvd. The installation to full version was straightforward. The main thing with these sorts of operations is that they are quite time consuming and in my case being a 'newbie' and lack of knowledge and experience, can be a bit tricky. I then installed my software freshly that I'd wanted to be in the upgrade. I'd backed up some basic settings and folders from my previous Mint using Mint backup program. I think it included the downloads folder and a few others of personal stuff from the 'home' directory. . The restore went well using the same tool. These were about four or five windows security programs (I regard as essential) that I use, installed by playonlinux. (which i freshly downloaded and installed along with 'bottles which similarly can run Windows programs in Linux. This is a bit fiddly because playonlinux has some inconsistency of behaviour from one windows program to the next which means 'going around the block' a few times to get it right. I managed to install all that I wanted using playonlinux and they all worked with one small glitch in that it would install this particular program and have a blank desktop icon. It will run but didn't look good. My intention is to try to overcome that small glitch and get the new Linux as I want it and then eventually use imageforlinux to make a usable image on a saved hard drive to 'upgrade' my other pcs and laptops if I choose to go that way. The new Linux is (to me) superficially not much different from the previous versions (and my needs are not extensive) but I don't know what has gone on 'under the hood' as I am not familiar with it at a deeper level. I am very happy with my next to last version of Linux Mint that I have on most of my machines.so I'm not sure if I will upgrade all my machines but with a saved image of the latest Mint I'll have the option to go that way if I feel the need. Anyone reading this will see that my computer life is quite chaotic and I go forward more on good luck than good management, 'On a wing and a prayer'. As I get older retention of information and 'strategy' gets more energy consuming. Tripped over the cat twice today..and I don't even have a cat. ....................... little update 9th feb 25 On rebooting the system the missing desktop icon from playonlinux installed program appeared. After updating through update manager everything is getting to be as I had it on previous version, so I'll give it a week or so ...do a manual timeshift and then make an image using imageforlinux to store on a hard drive to keep stored.
