On Sat, 5 Aug 2017 08:50:29 -0400 Hendrik Boom <hend...@topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 05, 2017 at 09:28:02AM +0000, Weaver wrote: > > Greetings. > > Currently running Debian SID, with separate /, swap, and /home > > partitions. > > I don't suppose switching is as easy as simply replacing the / > > partition with a new install, preserving the old data? > > When I do anything like that I usually copy the system partitions on > to now areas of the hard drive, edit /etc/fstab, and make sure both > sets of partitions boot properly. > > Then if anything goes wrong with a dist-upgrade, I have an untouched > bootable set of partitions to reboot to and use as a fully > functioning base for recovery. > > And of course, start by backing up your data. Just in case. > > -- hendrik I'd start with whatever package manager command lists the packages I've installed myselfself (rather than having been installed to fulfill dependencies). I'd put the list in your home directory. Also in my home directory, I'd put up to the minute copies of /etc/fstab, the output of the mount command, the output of cat /proc/partitions, a copy of `ip addr`, a copy of the disk's MBR or UID or whatever it's called, a copy of /etc/sudoers, and a tarball of /etc, all somewhere under my home directory.. Then I'd make off-disk backups of /home, and of every other data directory (stuff I've made or collected myself rather than OS/program stuff). After that I'd make an off-disk backup of the entire filesystem starting at /. Then I'd entirely wipe the disk and perform a brand new install of the sought version. Then I'd either mount or create my old /home as /oldhome. Using the list of manually installed packages from the old install, I'd make some shellscripts to install the necessary packages. I'd copy all data directories except /home to the same directory names or mountpoints. If there are parts of my old home directory that are obviously data rather than config info, I'd copy those over. I would NOT copy over old config info. Doing so is how you get ghosts of operating systems past, complete with bizarre and intermittent behavior. If I needed to change configs on the new setup, I'd diff them with the old configs, think about what's going on, and manually make the changes. Is my way more work? Heckyeah (as long as the dist-upgrade doesn't trash everything). Does my way leave me in a situation where every day for the first month, I'm finding and modifying little things in order that things work my way? Abso-lutely! Do I take a lot of grief from people when I articulate my method? You'd better believe it. But as an elder in the Church of the Known State, I view a from-scratch install as spring cleaning. I can throw out all those configs and caches that have been uselessly (and we hope harmlessly) hanging around since VA Linux was the stock to buy. I consider the fresh install to be one of the greatest gifts bestowed by non-rolling-release Linuxes. One more thing: I love almost all aspects of POSIX, but the use of one's home directory to hold both one's data and one's config is, in my opinion, a mistake. And it's a mistake unfortunately reenforced by application defaults concerning where to read and write content. Because I use my computer as a genuine *personal* computer, I just store all my content in a tree called /d (sorry LFS). If it were multiuser, I'd have various names off of /d for this purpose, and tell people nothing in their /home tree is backed up. If I absolutely *had to* use /home/slitt for data, I'd put all my data under /home/slitt/d/, so that I could quickly transfer my genuine data, while leaving the config stuff where it belongs: On the backup. After a few days, the tarball of /etc/fstab and /etc/sudoers and other sensitive backup stuff get erased from /oldhome. I generally keep /oldhome around until the next fresh install, at which time this /home because the current /oldhome, and the old /oldhome gets dropped. SteveT Steve Litt July 2017 featured book: Quit Joblessness: Start Your Own Business http://www.troubleshooters.com/startbiz _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
