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How to Reinstall? What should or can be retained?


Helmut
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Hi Folks,

I'm a long time MDK user. Think its time for a more or less clean reinstall.

Just oo many minor nuisance-bugs have popped up in time, and they shouldl be gotten rid of with a format hdx plus reinstall.

 

Now how is that best done? Personal documents are not a problem, because on a different drive.

 

How can all the other stuff be preserved, such as:

- Firefox-bookmarks

- TB Addressbook

- saved/stored passwords

- preferences in assorted applications

- anything forgotten?

 

Grateful for suggestions,

Helmut

Edited by Helmut
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For Firefox, you should find everything you need in:

 

/home/username/.mozilla/firefox

 

in there is a randomnumber.default directory, and the contents will be easily identified as to what you want to keep.

 

Thunderbird is similar:

 

/home/username/.thunderbird

 

again, the randomnumber.default directory, and contents within. I've copied emails back, all you need to copy is the Local Folders from within the Mail directory. For the address book, copy abook.mab (I think this is it, I didn't copy this last time and had to recreate).

 

A lot of the other files are created normally, so within Thunderbird, recreate the mail accounts, and overwrite the Local Folders after the new install. The random directory will be different each time. So it's only whats within here that needs to be copied.

 

As for saved passwords, I'm unsure of on this, preferences on applications you can look at from within your home directory and typing ls -a (LS -A), and it will list hidden directories with a "." at the front. These are normally the app settings as far as I know.

 

As aioshin says, if not worried and want everything, keep your user directory, but keep an eye out for issues with Firefox/Thunderbird if your emails and everything doesn't appear, because of the randomnumber generated directory.

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backup your /home coz here,  all user preferences are stored,... also, try to backp your /etc

 

 

I disagree. If you are at the point that you think you need to re-install to straighten things out, then backing up /etc is probably a bad call. Also, I wouldn't back up your entire home directory. Many settings are stored there, and resetting them all is one of the reasons to re-install. Be selective in your home back up. Only keep things that are working fine now, like firefox settings and such.

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