Fresh install?

[Michael Hirsch]

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 2:54 PM, David McGlone <d.mcglone at att.net> wrote:
> Ok this piques my interest. why copy /etc and /var? what if the fresh install
> made changes to some files in those directories that your backups of /etc
> and /var didn't have?

I don't usually backup /var, but I always back up /etc.  What if the
new install overwrites one of my configs, or is incompatible with it?
I want to know how I had the X server setup before so that I can try
to fix the new one.  I want to recall how I had my dhcp setup to
override the DNS entry and what if it is overwritten.  What is my new
fstab is missing something that worked before?

/etc/ contains all of my system configuration.  I back it up so that
if I ever wonder how it used to work I can find it.  Or, god forbid, I
decided to reinstall the old version I have a complete backup of what
worked.

Michael