Timothy Murphy wrote: : Tod Merley wrote: : : > I like fresh installs for several reasons: <snip> : > 1. Grab the flash drive (if the computer has not a CD burner) and move : > the "data - usable) contents of my home and Desktop directories. I : > tend to fill a CD so I may well include /etc (or part of it at least), : > by boot directory (grub backup - grub config files often useful). : : How do you know which files in /etc to copy to your new system? Over the years I've disciplined myself to do the following to each and every system file I alter for the first time: cp -p system_file system_file_tag where "tag" is a tag identifying the OS. For FC5 I use (surprise) "FC5". Then when I am about to do a fresh install of the next rev I issue as root: # /etc/cron.daily/mlocate.cron # locate '_FC5' | grep '_FC5$' The result on my freshly installed three week old FC5 machine gives: /boot/grub/grub.conf_FC5 /etc/fstab_FC5 /etc/group_FC5 /etc/inittab_FC5 /etc/ld.so.conf_FC5 /etc/logrotate.conf_FC5 /etc/modprobe.conf_FC5 /etc/mozpluggerrc_FC5 /etc/ntp.conf_FC5 /etc/passwd_FC5 /etc/sysctl.conf_FC5 /etc/X11/xorg.conf_FC5 /etc/cron.daily/+grimreaper_FC5 /etc/cron.daily/+tmpwatch_FC5 /etc/fonts/fonts.conf_FC5 /etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc_FC5 /etc/pam.d/system-auth-ac_FC5 /etc/rc.d/rc.local_FC5 /etc/ssh/sshd_config_FC5 /root/.bashrc_FC5 /usr/include/magick/image.h_FC5 /usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.13/res/fonts/fontEncoding.properties_FC5 /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/browse-url.el_FC5 which are files I've modified already. FYI, the two funny files in the center of the list with "+" prefix are in cron.daily. One, grimreaper, is my own cleaning script. Since no such "system file" was originally on the system, I created an empty dummy file to remind me to put the script on the new system. The other, tmpwatch, is an existing file that I modified. In both cases, I prepended the + to keep them from being executed by cron. Evidently any ordinarily named file in cron.daily (and its kin) will be executed. This little trick not only allows me to remember what file I changed but what changes I made (by a "diff" with the current file). Dean
