On Tue, 07 Mar 2023 17:33:45 +0100 Michael Lee <[email protected]> wrote:
> Is it possible to reinstall the system and still retain the settings, > logins, etc.? If you mean do a fresh installation, probably not. First off, make sure you back up everything you are likely to want. You can restore from your backups after the installation. You should be doing regular backups anyway. You can mitigate some of this by having a separate /home directory, but that introduces new problems: old versions of users' configuration files may not work with new versions of the software, or may not be exactly what you want. But that doesn't preserve system settings in /etc (where login information resides) and elsewhere. I make backups of stuff I am likely to want (/etc, e.g.). After a new installation, I copy the backups to a separate directory in /. If I find I need an old version of a file, it's right there. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
