On Sat, Jun 04, 2005 at 05:44:22AM -0700, Malcolm Swall wrote:
> Your mileage will vary with Partition Magic. I tried
> that trick with a not so old version, and ended up
> clearing all the partions and starting over. At the
> very least, make sure you have the latest version!
>
Question: Does this box have anything of value on it? Maybe starting
fresh is a good option.
When I started out (RH 4.1), the installations were much more demanding
of the newbie. I was on my own (before my Kplug days) and only had the
RH manuals (good then, better now) and a couple of people where I worked
for advice.
I ended up installing and installing and installing for about the first
9 months. Frankly, it was one of the most educational things I could
have done. I learned all about separate mount points; the sizes I wanted
them and why; peripherals and drivers; networking; lots of other stuff.
When I got to Kplug I noticed several people giving newbies the advice
to install several times just to get comfortable with the process. I
think there's still a lot to be said for that.
Also, there are subtle differences between upgrading a box and
installing it fresh with the newer version (Red Hat, perhaps others). I
recommend the fresh install. This implies that you *must* divvy up the
drives into mounts so that you can retain your data from one
installation to the next.
Partitions I have to *not* reformat:
/home
/var (I hate this, but fact is some programs put valuable data and
configs on /var WHICH THEY SHOULDN'T!)
/usr/local
/data (my own, not part of any official partition scheme)
Everything else gets plowed up on a reinstall.
Note that many of the configs in /etc and below are worth retaining from
one install to the next, if only for reference. Manage this in whatever
way you like. I use RCS to archive them to a safe partition (/data/etc).
--
Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616
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