[ubuntu-uk] Upgrade to Fiesty ??

[Neil Greenwood]

On 21/12/06, David Pashley <david at davidpashley.com> wrote:
> On Dec 20, 2006 at 23:34, Llywelyn Owen praised the llamas by saying:
> > From what I've read about upgrading Ubuntu to the next release it seems best
> > (more reliable and faster) to do a clean install. From this "reading between
> > the posts" about upgrading Ubuntu, isn't it time to have a unified one click
> > procedure of data backup from the currently installed version of Ubuntu that
> > can be restored without hassle in any new version? By data I mean user
> > created files, settings, and preferences, email settings etc. I understand
> > that this would mean a certain amount of discipline from application
> > developers but if applications are drawn from official repositories this
> > could be a prerequisite. OK, maybe a pie in the sky idea but an useful one
> > stop in house backup procedure is surely overdue and would be a major
> > selling point for (Ubuntu or indeed any distro). Dare I suggest that any
> > Linux backup of this nature would be transportable to other distros as well?
> >
> > Desktop graphics libraries, interfaces, and a whole host of other bits and
> > pieces are being standardized so it can't be beyond the whit of the
> > community come up with a solution to this regular problem - can it?
>
> Yes, it was solved many many years ago. Store /home on a separate
> partition and all will be well.
>

David,

I think Llywelyn was including changes in /etc as well as /home. So
your solution isn't sufficient.
I also found that storing /home on a separate partition isn't
sufficient: I don't have access to the list of packages that were
previously installed, since that's in /var/lib/dpkg. I also don't have
the program I installed from source into /usr/local...

It's a good job I tarred the / partition up before nuking it!

Hwyl,
Neil.