Re: Useful in the installer
On Sun, 2025-08-24 at 14:09 -0700, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
wrote:
> I keep my /home directory in a partition separate from root, not in
> a directory in root. This makes it easier to install a new OS.
>
> When I install Debian, it asks me for the name of a user.
>
> I never had the courage to put my own name and uname into that page,
> fearing it might damage my home directory.
>
> I create a "more" user, then log into that account, su to root,
> and add myself using the "Users" widget in KDE (I assume there's
> something similar in gnome), change my uid and gid in /etc/passwd*
> and /etc/group*, then delete the "more" user.
That sounds like unnecessary work.
I agree.
I too have /home in a separate
partition, and on the few occasions when an upgrade has gone sideways,
I don't think I've ever had /home damaged. But to be safe, I take
backups of /home, /etc, and /usr before applying any upgrade. If the
worst happens, I can wipe the entire disk with mkfs, install the new
version from scratch, and restore from backups.
I think most of us who read this mailing list know how to do and use backuips. For me, a backup-restore of /home takes about twenty times longer than the actual install.
Here's my backup script (must be run as root, watch for line wraps):
# Copy the root partition.
dd if=/dev/sda1 | gzip >/mnt/backup/killer-penguin/sda1.img.gz
# Copy various directories.
rsync -av --delete /etc /mnt/backup/killer-penguin
rsync -av --delete /usr /mnt/backup/killer-penguin
rsync -av --exclude='/home/cjg/.cache/' --delete /home
/mnt/backup/killer-penguin
You _do_ take full backups before upgrading, right?
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