[TriLUG] Debian Upgrade

[Roger W. Broseus via TriLUG]

Regardless of what distro, I keep /home on a separate partition so that it is 
easier to segregate and protect. Of course backing up is always a good idea. 
Here's some things that I find to be useful.

The odd ball files are certain "dot" and config files that will not be 
"customized" when re-installing. Using Ubuntu, I record the contents of such 
files .bashrc, where aliases are defined. If you use Thunderbird, save 
.Thunderbird/xxxxx.default so that your profile, email and address books are 
protected (xxxxx will be some random string that Thunderbird generates to 
provide security through obscurity). Others include config files for added 
applications, e.g., filezilla. In general, these files don't get overwritten 
but be safe. If a clean install is done, it saves a lot of time to save such 
files. One way of quickly checking this out is to look for creation dates that 
are different from those established during the older install process. And, 
during upgrades, some dot files may be overwritten, hence the value of saving 
older versions in a backup.

FWIW: I once blew away an install by accidentally deleting a bunch of dot 
files. The system would run . . . sort of. I had to re-install to fix the 
problem. Of course, all of the info in the config dot files was lost, e.g., 
desktop configuration, "panels" (menu bars), etc. That taught me to backup / 
keep copies of dot files.

I generally re-install between major upgrades with Ubuntu to avoid the hassle 
of contending with overlooked inconsistencies between versions that are not 
dealt with by upgrading between major releases.

--
Roger W. Broseus - Linux User
     Email: RogerB at bronord.com
     Web Site: www.bronord.com
     NEW Nov, 2017: Pics from trip to France, Switzerland and Vienna
         www.bronord.com/pics/fsa

On 11/30/2017 07:45 AM, Brian Grawburg via TriLUG wrote:
> I'm ready to upgrade my system to Debian 9.2.1 and would like some guidance.
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> I know that simply installing over the existing system is a bad idea and so I must wipe my HDD clean and start fresh. It's all my data that I hate trying to figure out how to keep and restore. Although I do backup important stuff there is lots of material I'd hate to loose but wouldn't jump off of the building if I lost it. One thought is to put in a temporary slave unit and transfer everything to it then move it back when I've got the new OS installed.
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> Oh, I'm thinking of putting Debian 9.0 Cinnamon (32-bit) on a PC for a non-Linux user here were I work instead of the full Debian 9. Good idea?
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> Thanks,
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> Brian Grawburg
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> Wilson
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> Sent from a PC running Debian 7, 64-bit Linux and LibreOffice. (No one needs to use MS Office!)
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