System files backup, how & what to backup?

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1

For updated openSUSE 11.0 -

I would like to backup my personal user settings (updated applications & libraries, drivers (nvidia), and esp. the gnome desktop settings, panels, etc as I spent some time configuring these).

Would also like to backup the system configuration (network, drivers, etc.) files.

Questions are (being from a Windows background)

  1. What should I backup? (which directories/files) & how to restore them later, after re-install of system?

  2. How can I backup (using what application)? (Will a simple copy (after login as ‘root’) to an external HDD suffice to restore from later)?

Links to articles/programs would be appreciated.

TIA,

2

desktop and user settings, are in
/home/user/.gnome

but really you could do with all the folders in your home hidden section

drivers, network, - forget it
you really need to re-do all that

3

I simply backup everything, including hidden files, in my /home/~user folder as I would do if installing to a computer where I did not already have a /home folder.

For mysql which stores data outside my /home folder, I use mysqldump to copy the data to a folder in my /home folder before I backup.

If you want to backup anything other than this, there is System Backup within YaST.

4

drivers, network, - forget it
you really need to re-do all that

What about image backups? (similar to Norton Ghost?)
Have the ext3 file system in all Linux partitions.

5

This is possible - but I have never done it - maybe someone else can comment.

Most of us here, do a new install every 6 months or so.
If not totally new, then new but keeping the /home as is - which is what I did this time moving on from 10.3 to 11

I just keep a backup of important data on a usb drive
Nothing ever goes wrong anyway.:X