Re: How to reinstall without loosing configurations?

[songbird <songbird@anthive.com>]

Aldo Maggi wrote:
> 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.

  that can be a good way to get rid a lot of cruft 
from packages you no longer use and whatever gets
left behind if you don't purge packages when you
remove them.

  but i think it is also overkill.

  for a better understanding of what is going on
i consider it much better to remove the offending
packages and reinstall them if needed.  learning
about where they store configuration and user
information, how to backup and restore the parts
you want is well worth the effort.


> 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.

  it can be.

  i keep a checklist of things and take notes of
what i've done for some more complicated tasks 
that i only do once in a while.


> 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) .

  if you have things you spent a lot of time on setting up
i would make sure you have a backup of those before doing
anything that might mess that up.

  i've been running a blend of testing and unstable for 
a number of years and only did a reinstall from scratch
on the new machine i have now.  it went pretty well.  
most configuration files and settings i could copy from
a backed up home partition and the other bits i wanted
from /etc.


  songbird