Is this what I have to do when I reinstall or change distro's?

Tzerkit619 · 07-08-2009, 12:04 PM

This is my very first post and I'm new to this so please bear with me if I phrase this incorrectly.
Previously, when i needed to reinstall ubuntu (because i royally screwed the pooch!) or wanted to try out a new distro I would just reuse my /home partition so I didn't have to copy back files, songs, etc. This would cause problems with the new install such as taskbar icons and such. Should I do something like delete all the files/folders in /home partition except my personal folders and then reinstall the distro? Will this solve those annoying messages and wired effects on the taskbar?

pljvaldez · 07-08-2009, 12:20 PM

The reasons things get hosed up when doing that is that the hidden user specific configuration files for your desktop are still there and may be slightly different versions depending on your distribution. For example, OpenSuse uses KDE4 while Debian Lenny is still using KDE 3.5. So things may look a bit odd.

I got around the problem by creating a separate partition like /shared and then store all my files and documents there. That way if I distro hop, I can just mount that partition in the new distro and it's all there, and the distro change can just overwrite /home each time. Of course, since I've found Debian, I haven't done any hopping...

Tzerkit619 · 07-08-2009, 09:49 PM

I figured that was what it was. The extra partition is a good idea. Still, if I enable the Show Hidden Files function in nautilus, delete everything except my personal folders, and reinstall would that solve my problem?

Tinkster · 07-08-2009, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tzerkit619

I figured that was what it was. The extra partition is a good idea. Still, if I enable the Show Hidden Files function in nautilus, delete everything except my personal folders, and reinstall would that solve my problem?

You shouldn't need to re-install ...

DavidMcCann · 07-09-2009, 12:00 PM

One point about changing distros. I recently switched from Fedora to Debian (I'll be switching back this weekend, but that's another story) and I left the configuration files in /home. The first time I started up after the installation, X window wouldn't start. What the installation instructions hadn't mentioned was that Debian-type distros (like Ubuntu) number the first user as 1000, but Red Hat types start with 500, so Debian didn't realise that /home was owned by me!

But reinstalling with the same distro and keeping the old configuration files is OK. I've always done that in Fedora, as I only used alternate versions, and I've never had any trouble.