Quote:
Originally Posted by nagendra_pratap_sing
Under what circumstance would I repair a linux system and to what degree of damage? I know that it is better to reinstall a system that has been root kitted. What are the other good candidates for reinstall?
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It depends on distribution and system configuration. In my opinion reinstallation makes sense only in case of massive loss of system files. For example, reinstall makes sense if:
1) All files were accidentally deleted.
2) /usr or /lib were accidentally deleted.
3) Harddrive is overwritten with random data.
4) Filesystem messed up by custom script (massive move/rename of really large amount (10000+) of files with no hope to revert damage)
Accidentally deleting /home is not one of those cases.
To restore most of old system after full reinstall you'll need to keep /etc and /home, so formatting your entire harddrive during reinstallation isn't always a good idea.