Finally going to bite the bullet and update my main machine, one question though.
How will I have to handle existing user directories and information on the /home partition if I do a fresh install of FC4? What will happen when during the first run I have to create a user and this user's directories etc already exists? I am going to back up all the information to DVD anyway as well as leaving copies on other partitions.
Also, will my raid0 drive (data drive) cause / be a problem?
On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 05:05:09AM -0400, David Niemi wrote:
Finally going to bite the bullet and update my main machine, one question though.
How will I have to handle existing user directories and information on the /home partition if I do a fresh install of FC4? What will happen when during the first run I have to create a user and this user's directories etc already exists? I am going to back up all the information to DVD anyway as well as leaving copies on other partitions.
Also, will my raid0 drive (data drive) cause / be a problem?
Back up all the critical directories, /home, /root and maybe /var if you have mail there, into tar file/ Store the files somewhere where they can be accessed later (a RW CD maybe). Install the new operating system. Then untar the tar files using the -k option. This option does not install files with the same name in the directory. Or untar the tar file in /tmp and copy files from the old etc, for example, that you want to retain.
These two re-install methods will do the job.
At 8:47 AM -0500 7/31/05, akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 05:05:09AM -0400, David Niemi wrote:
Finally going to bite the bullet and update my main machine, one question though.
How will I have to handle existing user directories and information on the /home partition if I do a fresh install of FC4? What will happen when during the first run I have to create a user and this user's directories etc already exists? I am going to back up all the information to DVD anyway as well as leaving copies on other partitions.
Also, will my raid0 drive (data drive) cause / be a problem?
Back up all the critical directories, /home, /root and maybe /var if you have mail there, into tar file/ Store the files somewhere where they can be accessed later (a RW CD maybe). Install the new operating system. Then untar the tar files using the -k option. This option does not install files with the same name in the directory. Or untar the tar file in /tmp and copy files from the old etc, for example, that you want to retain.
These two re-install methods will do the job.
Also back up /etc. You might need it if settings get munged, to have something to compare with.
There's probably some other important directories, but I haven't done this yet myself, so I don't have the benefit of (harsh) experience. ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' mailto:tonynelson@georgeanelson.com ' http://www.georgeanelson.com/
On Sun, 31 Jul 2005, Tony Nelson wrote:
At 8:47 AM -0500 7/31/05, akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 05:05:09AM -0400, David Niemi wrote:
Finally going to bite the bullet and update my main machine, one question though.
How will I have to handle existing user directories and information on the /home partition if I do a fresh install of FC4? What will happen when during the first run I have to create a user and this user's directories etc already exists? I am going to back up all the information to DVD anyway as well as leaving copies on other partitions.
Also, will my raid0 drive (data drive) cause / be a problem?
Back up all the critical directories, /home, /root and maybe /var if you have mail there, into tar file/ Store the files somewhere where they can be accessed later (a RW CD maybe). Install the new operating system. Then untar the tar files using the -k option. This option does not install files with the same name in the directory. Or untar the tar file in /tmp and copy files from the old etc, for example, that you want to retain.
These two re-install methods will do the job.
Also back up /etc. You might need it if settings get munged, to have something to compare with.
There's probably some other important directories, but I haven't done this yet myself, so I don't have the benefit of (harsh) experience.
/var/spool/mail if you receive mail on the machine. /var/spool/mqueue if your outgoing mail queue hasn't been cleared. Possibly some other /var subdirs, but check them and consider which ones have info about services you use.
On Sun, 2005-07-31 at 23:15 -0400, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
On Sun, 31 Jul 2005, Tony Nelson wrote:
At 8:47 AM -0500 7/31/05, akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Sun, Jul 31, 2005 at 05:05:09AM -0400, David Niemi wrote:
Finally going to bite the bullet and update my main machine, one question though.
Also back up /etc. You might need it if settings get munged, to have something to compare with.
There's probably some other important directories, but I haven't done this yet myself, so I don't have the benefit of (harsh) experience.
/var/spool/mail if you receive mail on the machine. /var/spool/mqueue if your outgoing mail queue hasn't been cleared. Possibly some other /var subdirs, but check them and consider which ones have info about services you use.
Thanks for all the responses, and sorry that I haven't followed up. I kept /etc and /home copying the directories to 2 other partitions that I wasn't going to touch using the "cp -p -r" to ensure I kept the ownerships and permissions. there was nothing really in the /var/spool or other directories that I couldn't live without.
due to other issues with the system I reformatted /home and after recreating the user I copied back the required files and directories as the user BEFORE running anything. I first tried it as root dragging and dropping the files but the ownerships and permissions changed, silly me.
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
Back up all the critical directories, /home, /root and maybe /var
Why root? Wouldn't that only be useful if you wanted to save having to reinstall packages? But going from FC3 to FC4, one should get updated RPMs or rebuild from source anyway, no?
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akonstam＠trinity.edu -
Colin Brace -
David Niemi -
Matthew Saltzman -
Tony Nelson