Chapter 1.  Before Starting
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Chapter 1.  Before Starting

Prepare the installation materials, back up anything important that might be unique to the machine.

  1. Download the new distribution

    Either KDE Neon or Kubuntu. Remember that KDE Neon will have the latest KDE and will be out-of-date for everything else, because it's based on the Ubuntu LTS. So: use Neon if an LTS has just come out, and Kubuntu otherwise.

    Note

    As of 2024-11-12, document is based on Kubuntu 24.10.

  2. Make USB Stick

    Download the iso

    Burn it with usb-creator-kde, not as root.

  3. Backup

    Check for things that have been lost in the past.

    • /etc/fstab

    • Network settings

    • Home directory symlinks

    • text files in home dir

    • certificates

    • Local ~/bin scripts

  4. Wipe the old hard drive

    shred -v -n 1 /dev/sda

    Warning

    This is probably pointless and maybe even harmful to an SSD.

  5. Reinstall

    Install from USB