On Mon, Jun 12, 2000 at 09:16:42PM -0500, Lee Revell wrote: > Hello, > > I have an old Ultrasparc with Red Hat 6.2 on it, which on this box is at > least as unstable as anything from Microsoft. Networking will > mysteriously stop working every few weeks for no reason. Changing > kernels has no effect. Maximized windows cover up the GNOME panel > regardless of my settings. The only solution I have found is to > periodically reinstall. Can I replace RH with Debian without losing > /home? Everything is on one big partition, and the machine doesn't have > a floppy.
Not super easily, though several options come to mind. Simplest, if you have access to networked storage, is to tar (or otherwise archive) /home and store it on a networked drive while installing Debian. You may want to back up other directories (possibly your entire installation) there as well, certainly /etc for reference and potentially news or mail archives. You could also install a new HD and install Debian onto it. It's possible with chroot to do a Debian installation while running a different distro, should you need to keep the system live. You may even be able to avoid a restart entirely -- search the archives for tips. Not sure of your stability expectations (and if networking was the only thing that failed every few weeks for me under legacy Microsoft OSs I'd be far less upset over them), but usually the problems are worse. Not sure if changing your Linux distro will help you out -- there's always the possibility of HW-related problems. Have you ruled these out? -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc. http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0
pgpUcQopNdnn8.pgp
Description: PGP signature
