If you leave your existing home partition as it currently is when you install Arch it should be accessible - don't format it when working through patitioning options at install.
But do take full back-up of your important docs,pics,vids etc - to external media - just in case!!
Thanks for all the advice guys, one last question about partioning though..
If I were to partion off my existing os from a live cd, would that have any effect on the files and programs in there, or would it just cut down space?
Also, could I acces and partion even though my home folder is encrypted?
I just installed arch in VirtualBox and I'm really considering formatting and installing arch as my main OS. Kde is beautiful and pacman is great to use. I'm going to play with it more and I think anyone how loves linux will love using arch.
maybe after I great after I master arch one day I'll Install gentoo.
As long as you use a tool that recognizes Linux partitions such as GParted, you run almost no risk of losing data. That's not to say you shouldn't back up your data just in case, but if you don't have the storage space, you don't run a significant risk of data loss by simply shrinking the partition containing your Ubuntu installation. (Leave a few GB of wiggle room, though; don't shrink it as small as you can.)
The process will be a little more complicated than just GParted if you have an LVM setup or if one or more of the existing partitions are encrypted with LUKS or Truecrypt or something like that. (Ubuntu's "Encrypted Home" feature does not encrypt the entire partition, so that wouldn't pose a problem.) But in the simple case where your Ubuntu OS lives on a plain primary or logical partition, yeah, just resize it with GParted and reboot to make sure everything still works before installing Arch onto the newly created free space.
As for the other question, since you say your "home folder" is encrypted, I'm going to guess that means you used Ubuntu's encrypted home feature and did not create an encrypted partition to mount /home on. In which case I don't have personal experience but I can reassure you that the tools used to implement that feature are also available for Arch (community/ecryptfs-utils). It may take some configuration to get it to work right, though.
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Everytime I install any other OS I opt for the option of no bootloader and then I boot into ubuntu and sudo update-grub just like you suggest.
Also, if you're thinking about installing Arch, I recommend doing it in VirtualBox first. I just got done doing that and it was quite an experience! I learned a lot from it and I'm doing it virtually so that I can get a better grip for how to do it on a real hard drive.
All I know is that I know nothing....
Thats a really great idea, and I think thats what ill do today, especially considering the amount of trouble I have had setting it up. I believe that this is a much smarter alternative to someone thats never used it before.
It took me a long time doing it yesterday and I made it through most of it with little hiccups but encountered problems when I got to the package management selection. I'm not completely happy with my results so I will probably reinstall it again this week. That's the beauty of VirtualBox, that you can play around with it until you get it right and at the same time you can keep using your main OS as if you were just running another program -- because you are.
Make sure to follow the Arch wiki as it does a great job at guiding you through almost all of it.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._Install_Guide
All I know is that I know nothing....
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