I've never had any luck doing an upgrade so I have learned to always do a fresh install. I've developed a little trick that I want to share. Actually, I probably read this somewhere else but it is worth posting again, especially with a new release out.

This assumes that you have separate /home partition.

Before doing the install create a directory in your home directory (I call it backup) and move all files, folders and hidden files from /home/username into the directory. After the install move all files and folders back into /home/username. Then copy the hidden files with user data into the appropriate directories.

For example to restore Firefox bookmarks
$ cp /home/warpengi/backup/.mozilla/firefox/p1w71wnb.default/bookmarks.html /home/warpengi/.mozilla/firefox/p1w71wnb.default/bookmarks.html

or just drag and drop between Konqueror sessions.

This gives you a fresh desktop, prevents conflicts from cropping up on your from the old install and allows you to keep all your settings. Things like bookmarks, contacts, emails, email accounts, SSH known hosts, and more can all be restored. Even bash history and cookies if you want to get really anal;-)

Yes this is a good idea except you have to be careful sometimes. It is possible for config files to change format or even meaning which could cause you problems. If you wanted to follow this I would add settings back for applications that you know have not changed hugely (e.g. the bash shell, firefox, any apps with the same version number) but if you were using KDE and changed from 3.2 to 3.4 I would be cautious. Just my thoughts!

"except you have to be careful sometimes"

Absolutely, I agree. Of course I don't recommend replacing config files only data files. Also, if you decide to use a different email client, or the client you were using decides to change how data is stored, then your caution is true as well.

In my example, if you look at where Firefox stores bookmarks you find a bookmarks.html file. If they change it to bookmarks.xml (like Konqueror) then it would not be a good idea to replace the default install file with the backup file.

Caution is always the word.

but what if you don't have a seperate partition for your /home - mine is within the root /

Then you would need to move everything to another partition or hardrive or burn it to disk. The main thing is you want your home partition empty so that the new install can set up all the default folders. Once the install is complete you can copy what you need back.

In your case if you did a clean install without backing up you would lose everything in your home folder.

The default Mandrake install creates a separate home partition. That is a very good idea IMO. When something goes wrong you don't have to worry about your data getting corrupted or, worse, formatted out of existence.

So if I update Mandrake10.1 to say 2006, can I simply create a new user and then move all my stuff under /home/olduser to /home/newuser - will that be safe?

Thanks warpengi

Regards,
Shelton.

If you use a new user name your going to run into permission problems. I'm not sure if that's what you meant but your post sort of read that way. So you should be moving the files that you backed up from /home/shelton/backup to /home/shelton

Where are you putting the /home/olduser/backup directory. I thought you had only one partition?

yes thats right - 1 partition only, so if I create another user, wont i then have

/home/shelton

and

/home/sheltonnew

so my old home/shelton is preserved?

Regards

The file system and partitions are completely independent of eachother. No matter how many/few partitions you have the file system always looks the same. Partitions are physical parrtitions on your hardrive and (mostly) can't be changed once they are set up. You can mount any part of the file system on any of the partitions (except swap) without altering the structure of the file system. Mandriva default partitions are mounted at /, swap and /home. The partitions will probably be /dev/hda1, /dev/hda5 and /dev/hda6. I'm sorry if that sounds confusing, this is a complex subject and not easy to describe in a few words. Do some reading about Linux partitions, file system, device file system. Google is your friend.

Here is a link to get you started, http://www.freeos.com/articles/3102/

If that does not explain it well try Googling for more information.

OK thanks for your help!

Regards,
Shelton.