hello,
Is there a way to reinstall the OS without destroying the user data files.
I want to have a fresh install of the OS but leave all pre-existent user directories/files intact.
It should be noted that I’m installing the same OS again.
Thanks.
The “classic” way of doing that I know about requires that you have ALREADY set up your OS installation appropriately, by having / and /home in separate partitions. Then when installing openSUSE, select a clean install and be certain that the openSUSE yast installer is proposing to reformat / but leave /home “as is” and is going to mount the /home partition under /home . Often this requires one to go to the advanced settings in the partitioner and specify precisely what one wants.
Then ensure one sets up the same user accounts with YaST, and ensure that one tells YaST to use the existing user directories, reassigning the permissions to the new user accounts (of the same user name).
That has always worked for me.
BUT it does not alleviate the need to backup everything, as despite the best efforts of a user, things can go wrong, and data can be lost.
If you had accepted the installer’s default of a separate partition for /home, just don’t format it this time around. Practically all the user data will be in /home. Exceptions: MySQL/Postgres DBs, crontabs, any unfetched mail in spool, at jobs, fetchmail config and a few other things that don’t come to mind near bedtime.
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Backup /home, or just /home/yourUserName, and restore that when done.
All user settings are stored in your home directory. This is part of
the reason why /home is usually, by default, partitioned off from the
rest of the filesystem. A complete reinstall can just mount the correct
partition back to /home in the new system and settings are retained,
along with documents.
Good luck.
buzlite wrote:
> hello,
> Is there a way to reinstall the OS without destroying the user data
> files.
> I want to have a fresh install of the OS but leave all pre-existent
> user directories/files intact.
> It should be noted that I’m installing the same OS again.
> Thanks.
>
>
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