On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Charles E. Nadeau <charles [ dot ] nadeau [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com > wrote: > Would it be possible to install Precise, from a DVD, on top of the actual > Maverick install while preserving the content of /home, /etc and /var/log? > i.e. without using "do-release-upgrade". Can I avoid another install from > scratch? > Trying to upgrade without using do-release-upgrade is going to be nothing but trouble. The problems you had with do-release-upgrade will likely be exacerbated. A fresh install that preserves /home is easy. I don't know why you would want to keep /var/log other then a backup. You likely don't want to keep /etc except for a handful of files: smb.conf, exports, and squid.conf. Old files in /etc could easily cause instability. Part of do-release-upgrade is supposed to convert and delete specific files in /etc that have changed. I would try do-release-upgrade again but keep going to precise. Oneiric could have been the problem. In your case I would unmount the 9TB of drives and comment out the entries in /etc/fstab that mount those drives. Also make sure that fstab uses UUID= instead of /dev/sda as the ordering of drives in /dev has changed from kernel to kernel. If that still doesn't work go for the fresh install. It will save time and tears in the future. Copy /etc and your other configs to the 9TB drive so that you can recreate the handful of important configs later. I would edit the new configs by hand instead of copying the config files back, as some of the default options have changed. -- sg