How to Backup /home
 

How do I backup my /home before the new version of Ubuntu comes out later this month. I am running Ubuntu 9.04 I really do not want to have to redownload my themes and everything.

Are you planning on reinstalling from scratch? If so, if your /home directory is on a different partition then you just need to tell the installer where it is, and it will preserve the old files. If /home is on the same partition as your root filesystem, then you will need to back it up to some other device like an external HDD.

If you are upgrading though apt, then you don't have to do anything.

This is how you update
That will update you to the latest.

But like he said above you need to back it up on some media disk or a HD

Yeah, no matter what, you need some kind of home backup. A lot of people go industrial-strength with off-site servers and whatnot but at least use 'rsync' to backup to an external hard drive or three. There are some specialized tools that are specifically devoted to being a backup frontend to rsync if you'd rather try those. A search will turn them up.