[sllug-members]: Re: Backup/restore/mirror question

[Matt Warnock]

Don't know if your old system is Kubuntu, but I would at least
backup /etc, /var, /srv, /home, and anything else you may have modified.
Some things like an RDBMS or LDAP databases should be dumped to text
files.  Install the new system, with drivers for new hardware etc.  I
usually backup the new default user /home/{user} in case the new
dotfiles are incompatible with what I was using on the old machine.
Then SELECTIVELY update the new machine with old config files, don't
copy them wholesale, and don't just copy over individual files without
backing up the new default config file, as config options and defaults
may change.  I usually dump the old files in an /etc-old directory, so I
can examine them and edit the new configuration easily.  Doesn't take
too much room, and I delete it after I know that the whole system is
successfully migrated.  Of course, you can easily use "scp -pr" to copy
these things as well, and I find it valuable to have the old and the new
running side-by-side on the network for awhile anyway.
-  
Matt Warnock, President
RidgeCrest Herbals, Inc.


On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 10:09 -0700, Steve Hildebrand wrote:
> I am going to be getting a WD 2.5" portable HD for data storage, and
> in the near future I will be upgrading the old AMD7 Linux box to
> something that isn't carved from stone.  If I make a full backup of
> root, run a basic install of Kubuntu on the new system to get it up
> and running, would I be able to lay the old system down on top of
> that?  I would expect a video tweak, maybe some hardware shuffling.
> Of course, the new board will have SATA drives, am I right in not
> expecting that to be a problem?
> 
> I would rather not mess with a network level solution, if at all
> possible, but I can do that if that is the best or only low-hassle
> solution.
> 
> 
> 
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