Apt broken

[David Fletcher]

On Monday 26 January 2009 00:45:40 Joel Oliver wrote:
> Michael Satterwhite wrote:
> > After reinstalling Hardy, I restored my Hardy /etc to get my old
> > configurations back. It looked good ... but
>
> You shouldn't haphazardly copy over your old /etc files as many updates
> change many of the configurations to resolve bugs or security problems
> or new features.  Just copy over the files that you are sure you need
> (Like /etc/ssh/sshd_config, /etc/apache/* etc..).  Most of your GUI
> programs config changes are not saved in /etc, but in
> /home/username/.appconfig files.  Backing up your /home directories is a
> better bet.
>
> Joel.

That sounds sensible.

What I do is have an rsync instruction in my backup script which maintains a 
copy of /etc/ in a directory in my home directory, then there is a tar 
instruction which backs up /home/. I also try to keep a list of which files I 
modified to get stuff working.

Then, next time I do a reinstall or freshly install a new version, I've got 
all my old /etc/ files to refer to, so I can see what I did before.

Dave