FC3 -> FC4 Fresh install, keeping /home

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sun, 31 Jul 2005, Tony Nelson wrote:

> At 8:47 AM -0500 7/31/05, akonstam at 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.

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs