11.04 Fresh Install and Partitions

[xchecker]

The more I read here sometimes, the more confused I get. Try to walk me through this if you might:

I have a desktop running 10.04 only (no Windows)for personal use. I have done upgrades in the past, but now am considering doing a fresh install of 11.04 because the upgrade process gets too long and clunky and my internet connection often breaks before it can finish loading all the new files.

I understand from many threads here that a root partition is recommended, and some recommend other partitions as well. I believe my disk is not currently partitioned.

1) Do you recommend a fresh install of 11.04?

2) What partitions, if any, do you recommend?

3) How should I determine the size to allocate to the partition(s)?

4) What is the process for preserving the settings and data I have now when I install 11.04?

I appreciate your indulgence of these rudimentary questions. I know enough only to know this isn't a process I want to mess up. Thanks.

[Sun.Dial]

Hi,
I've been using Ubuntu from 9.10, and the way I've gone about upgrading is to create a new partition for the new release and install it there, and so have my old system still working while I try out and get used to the new version.
On my HD I have 4 partitions, one for 10.10, one for Linux SWAP and a third for version 11.04, and a fourth on which I keep all my personal files and data.
Hope that helps a bit.
Regards,
Sun

[oldfred]

+1 on Sun.Dial's suggestions.

I had to do a clean install when converting to 64bit and now only do clean installs, but always put the new version into another system partition of 20-25GB with about 7GB used, so there is lots of room.

With the old install still available I can go back an get a setting or two that I forgot to include in my backups.

For the Total space you want for Ubuntu:
Ubuntu's standard install is just / (root) & swap, but it is better to add another partition for /home:
1. 10-20 GB Mountpoint / primary or logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
2. all but 2 GB Mountpoint /home logical beginning ext3(or ext4)
3. 2 GB Mountpoint swap logical

Depending on how much memory you have you may not absolutely need swap but having some is still recommended. I do not hibernate (boots fast enough for me) but if hibernating then you need swap equal to RAM. And if dual booting with windows a shared NTFS partition is also recommended. But you usually cannot create that as part of the install, just leave some space. Or partition in advance (recommended).
One advantage of partitioning in advance is that the installer will use the swap space to speed up the install. Thanks Herman for the tip.
But, I like to have several 25GB roots if hard drive is large enough, I prefer separate /data over /home but that requires a little more configuration

My backup is to make sure I have all the settings I would need.

Oldfred's list of stuff to backup May 2011:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1748541

My first clean install I forgot to backup (and did not know there was an easy way) a list of applications installed.

from lovinglinux - use dpkg to list installed apps
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7157175&postcount=5
http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techblog/article/restore_packages_using_dselectupgrade/
From old install
dpkg --get-selections > ~/my-packages
From New install
sudo dpkg --set-selections < my-packages
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

[xchecker]

Thanks for the good advice!