config files

mysticpain · 07-12-2004, 09:31 AM

I changed M-drake 10 to my liking. I want to copy the config files onto a floppy or disk and create a new machine with the same configuration. Where are my config files located? And is it possible to copy them over to the new machine and have a clone of the first one?

jkobrien · 07-12-2004, 10:49 AM

Your config files will be in your home directory and in /etc. Some packages may have configuration files in odd places.

It can be hard to make sure you've got them all as sometimes they're in nested subdirectories but if you use tar that should be ok.

In principle, copying them over will work, so long as both distributions and versions are the same. If there is anything hardware specific you might have to make some changes, but all your other settings will be preserved.

John

p-static · 07-12-2004, 12:00 PM

If the hardware is almost identical, you could just copy all the files(not just config files) over onto the new machine, and have a working install. No Microsoft-style activation crap. However, if the hardware is different, it probably won't work right.

mysticpain · 07-12-2004, 01:38 PM

The machines are identicle. Would you recommend I just do a system back up? Or what is the easiest way to back up the necessary files?

jkobrien · 07-13-2004, 05:37 AM

If you've just installed Linux on your new machine you don't really need to do a backup - if something does go wrong you can just reinstall.

Or maybe you mean on your new machine, as a means of copying the files over?

One way is to make a tarball (look at the man pages for tar and gzip/bzip2). For example to archive and compress the /etc directory do this...

tar -cjvf etc.tbz2 /etc

John