[PLUG] Preparing for a distro change

Tim Bruce timb at bruce4.com
Tue Sep 16 16:59:56 UTC 2008


Dick,

Using the command
    rpm -qa

under SuSE Linux should list all your INSTALLED packages.  That will give
you an idea of what software you need to reinstall (other than new
dependencies).

If /home is installed on another partition, you don't have to worry about
that being impacted by the new install.  However, you should back it up. 
A new Linux version max expect certain config files (or new parameters) in
your personal directory and may not work correctly.  If you're staying
with SuSE, there's been some discussion about that with the new version of
KDE, but I haven't followed all the conversations.

I'd also backup /etc and tuck that away into a new location to ensure you
don't overwrite anything important there (after tweaking your system).

Best of luck.

Tim
-- 
Timothy J. Bruce

visit my Website at: http://www.tbruce.com
Registered Linux User #325725

On Tue, September 16, 2008 07:10, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> It looks like it's time to bite the bullet and switch to a newer distro,
> or a newer version. In either case, whether I switch to a flavor of
> Ubuntu, or just upgrade to SuSE 11.x, things will happen to my home
> directory. I understand that if I change from SuSE 10.1 to Ubuntu I'll
> need to re-install everything. But, if I just upgrade from SuSE 10.1 to
> SuSE 11.x (I haven't spent the time to know which version makes sense
> for me), how do I figure out what changes will happen to /home/rsteff?
> How do I know which things I've added, like VMware Server, will survive
> the upgrade, and which ones won't? This time around I have a mostly
> empty large hard drive added to the machine where I can put a complete
> copy of /home/rsteff -- I could even put a complete copy of the drive
> with SuSE 10.1 on it. If I do that, will it help recover from changes I
> don't know will happen?
>
> Another issue is remembering what I've installed over the years. There
> are likely to be programs that I don't use often, but when the time
> comes, will they be there if I upgrade from 10.1 to 11.x? Is there some
> way to create a list of things I've told YaST to install so I could tell
> it to do it again after the upgrade?
>
> It looks like I'll be able to attend the clinic this Sunday. Assuming I
> want to bite the bigger bullet and switch to a flavor of Ubuntu, what
> can I do ahead of time to make it easier for the volunteers to help me
> do that install there?
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Dick Steffens
>
>
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