upgrade from RH9 to Fedora

Ben Steeves bcs at metacon.ca
Wed Nov 5 18:52:19 UTC 2003


On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 14:44, Don wrote:
> Scott,
> I like to do "clean installs" too... I did that when I installed FCT2 and
> FCT3, and will when FC1 is out as well. Right now I don't care if I reformat
> the entire drive... I bought a second drive just for the purpose of running
> Linux.... but when Linux starts actually replacing my Windows system, I
> won't have the luxury of simply reformatting the entire disk....
> 
> What do you do to preserve the contents of /home and other directories?

Always, always, always put /home on separate partition, or better yet,
drive.  

Back up /var/www (if you use it), /etc (to refer back to your old
configuration -- but don't install it over the new /etc on your fresh
system of course), /root, /var/lib/mysql (again, if you use it), and
maybe /usr/local if there's stuff in there you want to keep.

To back it up -- well, I usually just tar/gz it and put it on my home
drive.  

> I wish there were an option in the install process that allowed "everything
> to be wiped out" except for the user stuff.

Anaconda lets you choose what partitions get wiped -- just put anything
you don't want wiped on a different partition.

> I suspect this is easier said that done though because apps might have a
> tendency to put stuff in various directories... like maybe a certain app
> installs fonts it needs.... I might not want those put in the X11 directory,
> but that might be "convenient" for the app....

Fonts get put in one of several directories in the X11 tree.  I tend to
just re-install 'em.  
-- 
Ben Steeves                     _                    bcs at metacon.ca
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