Better way to install/upgrade?

[volksman]

geo wrote:
>
> I did that once before when I had 7.04 installed and upgraded to 7.10 
> - and it became totally corrupted, the machine struggled to even boot 
> up, some data became lost - and the machine is not exactly a slug 
> (Dell Optiplex GX260 with Pentum 4 at 2.5 GHz, 2 Gig RAM).
>
>  
>
> Jim Hutchinson over at the answers.launchpad help site told me that 
> it's better usually to just wipe the drive and start fresh and after 
> that nasty experience I don't want to risk data loss again.
>
>  
>
> You say just letting the upgrade/updater would not be a problem? I'd 
> like to try it but after that experience, I'm very hesitant.
>
I'm not sure why people have so many issues with an upgrade.  I've got a 
machine that has been upgraded to every release since 6.06.  I've never 
had any issues with upgrades.  But have read enough to know they do 
happen.  Just no clue why.

I don't disagree that a fresh install is best.  I just know that it 
takes time to get a machine to a certain state so fresh means an 
investment of time.
>
> Next question? Ok? In the partitioning scheme I suggested (one for the 
> OS, one for the user data) if I were to replace the OS for an upgrade, 
> would any user data (such as passwords, cookies, logins, desktop 
> customization, music play lists, e-mails, bookmark files) be at risk? 
> In other words, where does the user data like this get stored? In the 
> OS? Or in the individual user accounts?
>
Passwords are stored elsewhere.  but I think everything else you 
mentioned is in the user home dir.  There is a feature launched with 
Hardy that will detect home dirs and automount them during the install.  
So technically yes, your idea is the way to go.  I'm not sure if the new 
feature also creates the user accounts for you.  This may be an issue 
however it is minor and can be fixed with a little manual labor. 
>
> My current plan was just to connect another hard drive, login to each 
> account on the Dell, copy the whole user directory over to the hard 
> drive - repeat as often as necessary for each account.
>
> Or is there a better way to backup all user data and keep all things 
> intact, including permissions, etc...then restore?
>
Yeah.  Use a terminal as root and backup the entire /home tree.  This 
can be done with 'tar cxvf /tmp/homedirs.tar.gz /home'.  This will 
create a file called homedirs.tar.gz in your /tmp directory.  Burn that 
and you have a backup of everyones data.  There are a couple of GUI 
backup utils however I find most to be buggy in one way or another.  
Good old tar still does the trick.