maintaining user's configurations and other stuff

[ramonflores]

Hi:

 

I want to install Mandriva 2008 over Mandriva 2006. I do not want to make an upgrade, but a new installation. But

I want to keep up all the users' information: configurations and other stuff. Yes, I have a /home partition, and by the way I use KDE.

 

I have made some others upgrades, but I do not know any convenient way of main maintaining user's configurations; for kmail, Firefox, etc. I have previously made them by hand, and it take a lot of time.

 

Is there an convenient way of installing Mandriva 2008, maintaining the old user, with all its documents, kmail's messages, kmail's filters, konqueror cookies, etc? (Obviously

 

 

Thank for your input

[SilverSurfer60]

Not too difficult this one, before you start to install in a shell type 'df' to get your current partition configuration and take note of it. When you install, at the partitioning section choose to use current partitions, and when faced with the partition page enter the partition and mount points that you noted at the beginning.

When you get to the formatting page make sure that the /home partition is not selected. All the user configurations will be as they were beforehand.

If you have configurations in other directories (/etc) and the like then you will need to back those up before you start. One gottcha with this is that between 2006 & 2008 quite a lot has changed and it maybe that contents of /etc and the like may have well changed also.

I hope all this makes sense to you & good luck.

[ramonflores]

When you get to the formatting page make sure that the /home partition is not selected. All the user configurations will be as they were beforehand.

 

The users directories are there, but the users are not. It is necessary to create them, and the million question is how to create them maintaining all the users' information: documents, configuration files, kmail messages, kmail filters, firefox bookmarks, firefox cookies, etc.

[SilverSurfer60]

If I understand correctly it should be a matter of re-creating each user again with the same details you had in your previous installation, in the section where you create users after entering the root password. The only thing might be the password for each user unless you already know it and can enter it for them.

[ianw1974]

Ah, I get it. The /home/username directories exist, just the user doesn't.

 

So, you can add them again from console like this:

 

useradd -m username

 

replace username with whatever the user is called. The user's home directory will only be created if it doesn't already exist when you use the -m parameter. If problem with permissions later,

 

chown -R username:username /home/username

 

will reset it. Of course replace username with the actual username to reset.

[iphitus]

Instead of chmodding the files to the new UID, you can just do:

usermod -u 1234 bob

To change bob's uid to his old one (1234).

[ramonflores]

Ah, I get it. The /home/username directories exist, just the user doesn't.

...

 

If problem with permissions later,

 

Yes, you have got it. Permissions was the problem, specially with the dot files.

 

 

Thanks for your answers.

Ramom