[DC LoCo] Tar of a "dot" directory

[Marti Martinson]

Unless I am getting this wrong, all my Evolution email app personal
files reside in a "dot" directory in MY home directory.

If I did the following:

tar cvfp mail.tar .evolution/*

.....would ALL of the stuff beneath recursively save to the mail.tar tar
file so I could restore it later AND have Ecolution work?

I am asking because I think 10.4 will not work with my 2+ (maybe 3)
years old PC. I bought it in Jan 08 with 7.10 pre-installed, and have
always faithfully done both updates AND upgrades; yes, I am on 9.10
right now. However, the 10.4 LiveCDs I am trying out (with no intention
to LOAD) are failing: the desktop never appears.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/545367

With 10.4 one month away, I would imagine the bugs/changes are "frozen".
Heaven help the developers if they AREN'T! Maybe try at 10.10?

I might have to install PCLinuxOS, which uses synaptic and has an
Evolution option - I think. OR I guess I could get a new box, install
10.4, and restore the tar there. I would rather not spend the
moolah..... (I tried the 2 latest releases of PCLinuxOS LXDE and they
will boot to the desktop.)

Thank you.

Marti