computer going downhill, which files should i backup?
 

hi,

my computer is getting kinda unstable, and my usual solution is to reinstall linux, but this time i don't wan to spend an entire week reconfiguring the whole thing. my home files are on a seperate partition, so i don't have to worry about those. i think i could just copy the entire /etc directory, but is there anything that i should take with me? and is there anything else i should take besides the /etc dir?

thanks,
rabbit2345

You'll need to tell us what you are running to answer that

You may want to create a list of installed software if your distro has such options in its package management tools. I'm not familiar with the SuSe tools, but on a Debian system for example, I would just do:

dpkg --get-selections > my_installed_file_list

Then to restore, I install a 'base' system only, then:

dpkg --set-selections < my_installed_file_list
apt-get dselect-upgrade

If your distro has such tools, it makes life easier. :)

thanks pinniped for that, there is a feature in suse that will do the same.


billymayday: i run opensuse 10.3, if that helps any

My question was more directed at what apps you run, such as openldap, mysql, etc

my system does not run anything special like mysql, just standard kde apps i was also thinking that since the release of opensuse 11 was so close, i could install opensuse 11 instead of 10.3, would there be any conflicts if i did save the /etc directory and maybe the ~/.kde?


thanks,
rabbit2345

In that case, then probable /home, and it wouldn't hurt to have a copy of /etc. I also keep /var/spool/cron for any use/root cronjobs