[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

How to reinstall without loosing configurations?



Last time I've reinstalled was in 2005 after a failure of Jfs (luckily
I had the backup of my files), from them on I've just kept updating and
upgrading.
It is a couple of years, though, that some programs do not work
properly, for instance Firefox (doesn't keep the correct spacing
between lines, etc.), Thunderbird (in most threads doesn't show images.
etc.), so I've started privileging Chromium and Evolution, but, as from
about six months, the former doesn't open anymore some pages so I've
installed Falkon which, as far as I know, uses the same engine as
Chromium, but opens the pages that Chromium doesn't!!!

Though Linux and particularly Debian are very good in providing proper
updating, I start thinking that maybe something left behind in the
process, piling up during the years is creating such inconveniences, so
I've decided to reinstall my Debian.

I have been using "testing" since Sarge without having any major
problem, but I've noticed that reinstalling is more difficult now than
it used to be at the beginning of the new millennium, at that time I
would have used dpkg --get-selections and in the new partition dpkg --
set-selections and afterwards I'd have copied some dotfiles but reading
in various forums seems that now everything is more complicated.

Is there anyone who would advise me about the best way for having in
another partition a new Debian (same pkgs as I have here) and the
configurations I have (for instance, I'm wary of loosing control of my
home server through Xephyr which took me a lot of time to configure,
obviously I can do it via ssh but it is not the same thing, etc) .

Thank you in advance,

Aldo :-) 


Reply to: