wipe and reinstall

From	RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>
Newsgroups	comp.misc
Subject	wipe and reinstall
Date	2019-01-13 16:16 -0500
Organization	solani.org
Message-ID	<0fmsgf-h6d.ln1@rasp.therandymon.com> (permalink)

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It's not as easy to wipe a Linux partition and restore these days, though
ostensibly with Linux that should be one of the advantages.  I had a Linux
Mint box I wanted to upgrade, so I backed everything up to my FreeNAS, wiped
the machine, and then began restoring from my backup, only to find not
everything worked as I thought it should, and now I've got a chore trying to
figure out what went wrong.

The things I most want to avoid having to reconfigure are: Firefox
bookmarks, passwords, and history; Evolution IMAP, CardDAV and CALDAV
configs, and Cinnamon desktop configs, but those are the exact things that
gave me trouble.  I think one of the issues is actually security: passwords
are hashed using a salt that doesn't carry over to the new machine, so
you've got to manually reconnect all the IMAP and DAV configs.

Then, Firefox helpfully starts you out with a "fresh" profile, which takes a
while to reconfigure (I think they want you to use their Firefox sync
service, which in truth would've saved me some hassle - I've begun using it
now - but introduces security questions of its own).

Lastly, it might've been a permissions problem - looking into that now - but
little of my cinnamon install transferred correctly.  Very annoying!

I remember in the days of fluxbox, mutt, and sylpheed you could very easily
backup $HOME to a USB key, wipe your Linux install, and then reinstall $HOME
from your USB key.  Those days seem to be well and over.  Too bad! Don't
think FreeBSD would've saved me any time either, it seems to be the way
modern Linux apps are configured.

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wipe and reinstall RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-01-13 16:16 -0500
  Re: wipe and reinstall Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2019-01-14 00:17 +0000
    Re: wipe and reinstall RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-01-14 00:51 +0000
      Re: wipe and reinstall Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2019-01-13 22:08 -0500
        Re: wipe and reinstall Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2019-01-14 09:24 +0000
        Re: wipe and reinstall RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-01-17 18:44 +0300
          Re: wipe and reinstall Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2019-01-17 11:19 -0500
          Re: wipe and reinstall Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2019-01-17 17:09 +0000
      Re: wipe and reinstall Kerry Imming <kcimming@pobox.com> - 2019-01-14 11:52 -0600
      digital hoarding Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2019-01-15 18:25 +0000
        Re: digital hoarding Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-15 19:32 +0000
          Re: digital hoarding Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2019-01-15 19:57 +0000
            Re: digital hoarding Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-15 20:05 +0000
              Re: digital hoarding Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2019-01-15 20:20 +0000
          Re: digital hoarding not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2019-01-15 22:25 +0000
            Re: digital hoarding Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-15 22:45 +0000
              Re: digital hoarding Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2019-01-16 04:03 +0000
                Re: digital hoarding Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-16 22:15 +0000
                Re: digital hoarding not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2019-01-17 22:11 +0000
                Re: digital hoarding Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-17 22:54 +0000
                Re: digital hoarding Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2019-01-18 15:32 +0200
                Re: digital hoarding Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2019-01-18 01:56 -0400
                Re: digital hoarding Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> - 2019-01-26 07:35 +0000
                Re: digital hoarding Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-28 05:10 +0000
  Re: wipe and reinstall "Dirk T. Verbeek" <dverbeek@xs4all.nl> - 2019-01-14 11:36 +0100
  Re: wipe and reinstall "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2019-01-14 12:07 +0100
    Re: wipe and reinstall Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2019-01-14 13:01 +0000
      Re: wipe and reinstall Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2019-01-14 15:32 +0000
        Re: wipe and reinstall Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2019-01-14 15:36 +0000
      Re: wipe and reinstall "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2019-01-15 10:22 +0100
        Re: wipe and reinstall Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2019-01-15 09:47 +0000
          Re: wipe and reinstall "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2019-01-15 11:13 +0100
        Re: wipe and reinstall Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-01-15 19:42 +0000
  Re: wipe and reinstall Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2019-01-14 11:31 +0000
    Re: wipe and reinstall scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2019-01-14 21:52 +0000
      Re: wipe and reinstall gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2019-01-15 00:33 +0000
  Re: wipe and reinstall Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2019-01-14 12:23 +0000
  Re: wipe and reinstall kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2019-01-14 17:21 -0500
  Re: wipe and reinstall J <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2019-01-16 12:55 +0000
    Re: wipe and reinstall Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2019-01-16 14:24 +0000
  Re: wipe and reinstall Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> - 2019-01-17 12:55 +1100

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