Hello,

Well last week I damaged my linux after resting my computer when Gimp frose it. I can only work in console mode now and none of the generous help offered on that forum helped me repair my x.

I am now thinking of re-installing Linux. I haven't done it in a while and the process of the installation is far in my memory. I would like to reinstall the system without affecting the extra-software I installed (java for example) and without touching the home directory of the different account.

Is it what is going to happen by default, Linux not touching anything else than what it needs for installing or is it going to crush and format all the partitions?

Is the 9.1 distro worth an upgrade?

Thanks for the help.

during re-install, it will ask you for the partitions to format. you can select them, root partition is formatted by default, but you have to select to partition the /usr partition, otherwise the fresh install applications and the the options will not take effect. so if you installed java or whatever in /usr then you have to loose them and your option would be to upgrade. if you have them in any other partition then you can do a reinstall

if it's broken i'd suggest upgrading to 9.1 rather than reinstalling, as this way it won't affect the files at all.