[ale] Help with data recovery

[Jim Ransone]

Thank you for the very detailed response. A lot of that went over my head,
so I will need to google a lot of those technical terms.

Thanks,
Jim

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 11:33 AM DJ-Pfulio via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
> There are 1,000 different solutions.
>
> On 8/25/20 10:39 AM, Jim Ransone via Ale wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Now I am on to the next can of worms. I was using Ubuntu Studio for
> > the pre-installed audio, video, and graphiç design software. It runs
> > the Xfce desktop environment. Apparently, they are moving to KDE
> > Plasma on the next LTS because it's better in some ways and the
> > resource use is now comparably low to Xfce. Apparently most of Ubuntu
> > Studio's development team has gone to installing Kubuntu on their own
> > computers and adding all the extra Ubuntu Studio stuff on top of
> > Kubuntu with an installer designed for that purpose.
>
> I find that very hard to believe. The way that KDE makes more sense is
> only if you use nearly all Qt-based apps or if you have 16G+ of RAM.  KDE
> is for people who like to control settings, but still want a GUI.  I like
> to control settings, but happily edit my ~/.fvwm/ config files for TOTAL
> CONTROL! ;)
>
> > So I have decided to go that route myself. Now I am trying to figure
> > out the best way to get Kubuntu with the Ubuntu Studio stuff and my
> > old home folder with all the config files back on my laptop. Anyone
> > have any thoughts on the best strategy for this? I have seen someone
> > online suggest that the best way is to get the home directory on a
> > separate partition FIRST and then installing the new OS in a
> > different partition after that. This makes sense to me. Apparently
> > there are numerous posts that explain how to do the partition thing.
>
> I wouldn't split the HOME directory off.  That makes the most sense for
> people without backups. You have backups, so there really isn't any point.
>
> While you do the disk resizing and moving around, I'd setup the installer
> following my normal disk layout and use LVM+ext4, but lots of people choose
> not to use LVM to avoid the extra complexities.  LVM is one of those things
> that you don't know you need it, until it is too late.  ZFS isn't read for
> the OS storage yet and BTRFS brings just as many complexities as either ZFS
> or LVM, but without all the online articles to clearly get you through
> issues.
> I would ignore most of the storage on the system and only allocate about
> 30G to the OS and 4.1G for swap.  The rest would be in the PV and VG, just
> not allocated to any LVs.
>
> If your file system is already using LVM, much of these things are easier.
> If you want to move to a new HDD/SSD, you can do that on a live system
> too.  LVM provides .... options.
>
> > Also, there is the issue that led me to reinstall the OS in the first
> > place: I had messed up my audio configuration and couldn't figure out
> > how to get sound back. So somehow I need to get all my email,
> > browser, calendar settings and cache back but not my audio settings,
> > which I had totally screwed up somehow.
>
> Use the 'tree -d' command to see all the directories below your $HOME.
> There are probably hundreds. There is a pretty clear layout that your brain
> will quickly understand, but you have to look.  GUIs are fine for moving
> around, but they don't give the overview that 'tree -d' does.
>
> > Again, any advice is appreciated! And thanks to everyone for all the
> > help with my data recovery!!
>
> Questions like this usually require some back and forth. You might find
> existing answers and ongoing help over in the ubuntuforums.  Plus, there
> are enough slight differences where highly skilled non-Ubuntu people may
> provide less-than-great advice outside an Ubuntu-specific group.
>
> So - first thing is to show your current disk layout, but without all the
> crap. Also, it should be clearly stated whether you boot with legacy BIOS
> or UEFI and if there is any dual-triple booting:
> $ df -hT -x squashfs -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs
> $ lsblk -e 7 -o name,size,type,fstype,mountpoint
> $ inxi -Dz
> Should be sufficient, though a
> $ sudo fdisk -l
> could be helpful too, provided all the extra crap is removed. Only read
> HDDs/SSDs should be shown, not virtual crap or loops.  Also, when posting
> in forums, please use the method they have to post code.  On the ubuntu
> forums, that is commonly called 'code tags'.
>
> If you aren't comfortable editing the fstab, posting the current fstab and
> lsblk output would be helpful too. Always use sudoedit to edit system
> config files.
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