[Novices] upgrade installation

[Robert G. Brown]

On Sat, 04 Mar 2006 09:06:26 -0500, Eric Beversluis wrote:

>I'm about to upgrade my Mandrake 10.1 to Mandriva 2006. I'm not sure
>exactly what I do about my home directory: How much of what the new
>install creates should I keep and how much should I replace with the
>backup of my current home directory? 
It is ALWAYS a good idea to back up things you want to keep (and I won't
argue with "everything") before a major upgrade.

Now, is this really an upgrade, or a new install? Ususally, upgrades
do not touch home directories.

>1.  Presumably I create a user (ericb) when I do the install.
OK, again, my question.. install or upgrade?

It is very common to so isolate home directories (like on a different
partition or drive) that an install/upgrade doesn't see them.

>2.  If so, do I then copy the entire contents of my old /home/ericb
>directory, replacing what Mandriva has created, or do I need to keep
>some of the new stuff? If so, what? (Initial hypothesis: just copy the
>documents and documents directories and let Mandriva manage the hidden
>files and folders? This doesn't seem quite right because, for example,
>my email is in the .evolution folder. )

A lot of what I've said makes these issues moot. I would claim that backing
up and restoring EVERYTHING (or detaching /home) is the best approach. In
any case, you may run into some problems if the upgraded applications 
treat files differently, but that's going to happen in any case, on any 
system... Once you upgrades, go through things and make sure they work
as expected. If they don't, read the upgrade documents, and see if they 
have anything to say about the software that's misbehaving...

Good luck! 
							Regards,
							---> RGB <---