Hi, I have a machine with SL 4.5 and I want to install SL 5.2
on it, but without destroying the /home partition. When booting
from the installation CD I am given basically only two options:

- Upgrade 4.5 preserving data.

- Install 5.2 destroying all data on the drive.

There is also an option claiming to install only on selected
partitions, but when I use it I do not see the current partitions
and I cannot select which ones to use for installation and which
ones to preserve.

Is there any way to install 5.2 without destroying the home partition?

This is my current layout:

$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3            1012M  886M   75M  93% /
/dev/sda1              99M   74M   21M  79% /boot
none                 1009M     0 1009M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda5              99G   41G   54G  43% /home
/dev/sda6             9.9G  374M  9.0G   4% /opt
/dev/sda10           1012M   34M  927M   4% /tmp
/dev/sda11             94G   73G   16G  83% /u1
/dev/sda8             9.9G  4.2G  5.2G  45% /usr
/dev/sda7             9.9G  2.3G  7.1G  25% /usr/local
/dev/sda9             2.0G  439M  1.5G  23% /var


# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30394 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14         535     4192965   82  Linux swap
/dev/sda3             536         666     1052257+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4             667       30394   238790160    5  Extended
/dev/sda5             667       13720   104856223+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6           13721       15025    10482381   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           15026       16330    10482381   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           16331       17635    10482381   83  Linux
/dev/sda9           17636       17896     2096451   83  Linux
/dev/sda10          17897       18027     1052226   83  Linux
/dev/sda11          18028       30394    99337896   83  Linux


I have to do something similar not only on this machine, but on
about thirty machines that we have in the department. Installing
fresh on each machine and recovering data from backups is going
to take forever, if possible I would prefer to install without
destroying the user's data.


Thank you in advance!


Miguel A. Lerma

--
  Miguel A. Lerma
  Math Comp Sys Admin
  Department of Mathematics  <[log in to unmask]>
  Northwestern University    <http://www.math.northwestern.edu/~mlerma/>
  2033 Sheridan Road         847-491-8020 (w)
  Evanston, IL 60208-2730    847-491-8906 (f)