Ok guys .. I never was much of a computer geek anyway.. but I have been away from Linux for a while.. I got an old box that just begged for a Linux install: 500mhz cpu, 1-10gig IDE hard drive and 2-18 gig SCSI drives,so I installed debian. It took a while to set the hard drives up like I want and I think I've done at least 4 or 5 installs, but I finally got it close to what I want. I really really don't want to do another complete reinstall on this system again. My question is.. Is there a way to save my configuration in Linux like the "Restore" program works in Windows?. I installed "webadmin" and backed my configuration files up that way.. Is there a better option. I just want to be able to go back to square one of my install as I play with my new configuration. Thanks for any answers..

I like to use System Rescue livecd and Partimage program to do a full partition backup. Just be sure to test the backup/restore functions to make sure they work. Always test backups.

To create a list of installed programs:

dpkg --get-selections > my_list

To install all those programs after installing a minimal ('bare') system:

dpkg --set-selections < my_list && apt-get dselect-upgrade

You still have to set up individual configuration files though. To restore system-wide configurations you'll need to backup and restore files in the /etc directory.