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On my old laptop I have Ubuntu 16.04, I'd like to migrate all my installed apps and personal data to a new laptop which has a huge HDD and a small SSD (20GB), so when installing Ubuntu on the new laptop I put the / partition on the SSD and the /home on the HDD.

To migrate all my packages I found this.

If I follow these steps, where all new packages will be installed, on the SSD or the HDD? What can I do so all the new software will be installed on the HDD in order to keep a minimal amount of data on the SSD?

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    My personal opinion: reinstall and only copy your personal data over with a USB stick.
    – Rinzwind
    Oct 10, 2016 at 12:38
  • reinstall all packages ? ok but where they will be installed ? I'm not sure SSD is enough to all my apps !!
    – Sami
    Oct 10, 2016 at 12:46
  • On the SSD. And 20 Gb is more than enough. Even with a mysql database and apache I have trouble going over 12Gb. 20Gb is a good size for / Just make sure you put /home/ on your HDD and the largest part of what you use your system for is on the HDD.
    – Rinzwind
    Oct 10, 2016 at 12:48
  • @Sam Just reinstall your packages on the new computer.
    – negusp
    Oct 10, 2016 at 12:49

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I would just reinstall the system and reconfigure the applications myself.

Keep your system files on 1 disk, so the SSD. 20Gb is enough to install all the software you will want to install (well not if you install everything in the repositories ;) ). Otherwise get a bigger SSD.

I myself did the following:

  • / on the SSD in a 20Gb partition
  • /home on the SSD in a 5Gb partition. I do not use this for my own files only to store the hidden directories the system itself installs. (I have a 120 Gb SSD and the remainder is kept unallocated).
  • Partition /discworld on my HDD.

I changed ~./config/users-dirs.dirs to use /discsworld so all my directories from /home are there. Basically all my personal data is on the HDD.

Yes, you can split the system into 2; it used to be normal to mount all the different root-directories onto their own partition on servers.

If you create a mountpoint called /var on the HDD the contents of /var will be stored on the HDD. Have a look at the filesystem hierarchy for a list and explanation...

bin Essential command binaries
boot    Static files of the boot loader
dev Device files
etc Host-specific system configuration
lib Essential shared libraries and kernel modules
media   Mount point for removeable media
mnt Mount point for mounting a filesystem temporarily
opt Add-on application software packages
sbin    Essential system binaries
srv Data for services provided by this system
tmp Temporary files
usr Secondary hierarchy
var Variable data

But ... if either your SDD or HDD breaks you can't boot your system. Plus it is a lot more work when you want to re-install.

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  • opt Add-on application software packages >> should I move /opt to HDD ? What about /tmp and /var ? I took a look on this : askubuntu.com/questions/401125/…
    – Sami
    Oct 10, 2016 at 13:49
  • You are not likely to use /opt. Or do you use 3rd party apps(Eclipse, Aptana for webdevving? Tomcat? ) If so go for it. You can put whatever you want on the HDD. I am just saying that I would get me a bigger SSD ;-)
    – Rinzwind
    Oct 10, 2016 at 13:58
  • yes I use 3rd party apps, in fact this is what I'm talking about when I said "personal apps" :)
    – Sami
    Oct 10, 2016 at 15:11
  • Oh then create /opt on the hdd. /opt always has -everything- except a service file or executable in /opt/ (so a tmp or cache is also there)
    – Rinzwind
    Oct 10, 2016 at 15:12

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