Clean install keeping home folder intact

[Tim]

On Mon, 2012-08-20 at 08:16 -0700, Geoffrey Leach wrote:
> Keep in mind that you should backup your home folder even if you don't
> intend to restore it. Otherwise, there lies madness.

This is why I prefer desktop computers with more than one drive.  You
put the operating system and software on one, and personal stuff on the
other.  For a no-risk upgrade, you can unplug the personal drive during
the upgrade.  And all you have to do, post upgrade, is make sure the
fstab file has an entry for your personal drive.

I have tried external drives, but they've all gone bad, and quite
quickly.  They have crappy power supplies, and I think drive overheating
and being bumped about are the two most likely causes for the drives
failing rapidly.  Plus, you have annoyances like drives that shutdown,
when you don't want them to, as power saving features.

For computers where it was hard/impossible to fit another internal
drive, and for multiple computers on a site used, a central file server
was the most convenient answer for storing personal files.  Just pick an
OS that doesn't need updating/discarding all the time.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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