Back Up Linux Mint 13 to Upgrade to LM17
 

If I use mint's backup, then wipe out LM13 to install LM17, when I do a restore, does it put back all my settings, styles, wallpaper, etc?

If mint's backup does not, is there a program that will do that?

Thanks!

Maybe...
Maybe not...

That is what it is supposed to do, but I know I had some issues with it restoring some time back. Gave up in disgust (not a big fan of GUI only solutions) and haven't used it since. I find it best to have a separate /home partition and re-install using that as the new /home, and create the same user(s)/password(s) during the later install.
You have to re-instaall packages, but you would have to do that anyway - they will find the "dot" and config files under /home and install cleanly. Never had a problem, but you always need to backup before-hand anyway. I usually just rsync to a spare partition somewhere.

I have a script that runs weekly that gzips my home directory; moves the tarball to /var/tmp; mounts the thumb drive that lives in the back of my machine; deletes the previous tarball; copies to the thumb drive then umounts the thumb drive.

The script is from the days when a 1GB thumb drive was 'biiig' so that's why the compression. When I install a newer OS I just copy the tarball to /home and extract it.

leandean,

That is a very neat idea.

Would you like to share the details of that script?

When I read this I think... rsync :-)