Easiest way to re-install LXDE and avoid email headaches & browser bookmarks?

[yonnie]

Using LXDE 3.2.18
Last time I did this I lost most of my addressbook and many of my emails and all of my bookmarks.  The methods described to transfer these were incorrect and did not work.  Using TB and FF.  I have more than 200GB of data.  (I do not use windows at all and it's not installed on any of my computers, there are no concerns about dual-boots and hidden partitions.)

I would like to know if I could just copy my user directory to another drive and then copy it back again after re-install?  My largest concern however is this method may put some of my problems back into the fresh install or even create worse problems.

Any thoughts on this?

[coffeetime]

Please post back:

Code: [Select]

df -h

[yonnie]

are you responsible for that awesome video?

 df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1              12G  5.1G  6.4G  45% /
/dev/sda6             450G  240G  211G  54% /home

[yonnie]

Hey, thanks for all the response!

Tried the re-install approach using just the / partition, leaving the /home intact.  Worked pretty good?  Don think so.  The printer icon in the CC is now accessible, but thereś no printer stuff to look at inside.  The printer via the menu button now shows an Epson and HP and several Lexmark stuff (I only have one HP).  And in case you haven´t noticed my keyboard can´t make up itś mind about being US or French.

On the plus side FF and TB were no issue at all except some websites don´t remember me, almost glad.  Did have an issue with the launch bar.  A rectangle was left where TB used to be and when I went to fix it the whole launch bar went away.

The Menu issue where it would stay up and not go away, or only show Run/Logout is still present.  Plus the second user is missing, can´t login or out, heś gone!  How´d that happen?  /home was left intact.

Any suggestions on how to re-install again?  Maybe I should delete most of the .hidden files first?  Any ones in particular?

[horusfalcon]

Looks like it has been a while and there hasn't been any motion here.  Let's see if I can be of some help to you.

Browser bookmarks?  Which browser?  They all store stuff in different places.  For Firefox, the location for browser data is:

~/.mozilla/firefox/[insert_cryptic_text_here].default

As long as this folder is intact across installs, Firefox's bookmarks, plug-ins, add-ons and other stuff will be intact when you start up.

For email, again, it depends on the client in use.  For Thunderbird:

~/.thunderbird

is the default location for storing all Thunderbird-related data.

Back these up and, before starting browser or email, copy them into the proper locations in your new home folder, and you should be all right.

Me, I just keep my /home partition intact across installs, and it seems to work okay for me so long as I create new users on the system with the same user names as before in the same order as before.

Create new users with different names or the same names but in a different order and all bets are off.

Later On,
D

[yonnie]

Hi Horace,
I´ve noticed a couple issues with this.  (still have to fix the tick issue, keyboard thinks itś french)
If I install on a fresh disk and install TB first before the profiles, itś a pita to get things working.  If I install everything else (my back-ups) and then install TB, things go pretty smooth and it all seems to work.  If I install a Ubuntu-based OS and then try to get the profiles to work, itś nothing but trouble with owner-ship issues with files and profiles.  Nothing works easily.

With PCLOS, itś fairly smooth to just keep the /home (as is) and install the OS in the /.  A few things won´t work right and some things will be gone, other things will be present.  The network printer would not work again.  Had to completely un-install hplip re-boot and then re-install before it (printer) would work.  Iḿ thinking a fair number of the .files(hidden) in the user folder need to be deleted prior to installing an OS.  Need to figure out which ones.

[horusfalcon]

It may help to give an example:

On my last re-install (which was done to correct a kludge partitioning scheme I had used as a stopgap when / partition started to run out of space), I retained my /home partition.  During post-installation of the "new" OS (still 2012.08, which, at the time was a release behind), I created the root user account, and then created my normal user with the same name as I had been using before.  This meant that this particular "normal" user acquired the User ID 500, which was its User ID before the re-installation.

It's been my experience that, if a user's account is recreated with the same user name and user ID as before, everything just works.  If the user name or user ID is different, you get into having to import data from an old account to the new one and things tend to break if you're not careful.

This is why I said earlier that the order of creation of these accounts is important - accounts acquire user IDs in sequence starting by default with 500.

You might check and see what user ID your account is using.  With only one user, it should be 500 and, as long as the user name is the same, all should be well.  What is not working for you?

Jot back and let's see if we can work this.

Later On,
D

[yonnie]

I did it on two machines, used same username.  One system is my play-with system, other is my work-horse.  On the play system, I installed the TB first and then installed the back-up profiles.  It took a lot of extra effort to get it to work.  On second install, I copied the profiles first and then installed the TB, things just started working without much trouble.  So I did the same on my work system.  There are a few things that are issues but mostly minor.  The one real pita is the archive manager for TB.  I tried to use it to trim down the mail boxe sizes without losing them and couldn't figure out how to make it do so.  Now I can't get it to turn off.  There are a number of things that don't work anymore, and I didn't keep track of all the many things I had installed and used that are now not there.

I think there are a number of hidden files that should be removed prior to re-installing OS and then there is another whole set of things you need to do if moving to or from a ubuntu based OS.  I'll play around with this and post back.  It'll be awhile.

[horusfalcon]

I did it on two machines, used same username.  One system is my play-with system, other is my work-horse.  On the play system, I installed the TB first and then installed the back-up profiles.  It took a lot of extra effort to get it to work.  On second install, I copied the profiles first and then installed the TB, things just started working without much trouble.  So I did the same on my work system.  There are a few things that are issues but mostly minor.  The one real pita is the archive manager for TB.  I tried to use it to trim down the mail boxe sizes without losing them and couldn't figure out how to make it do so.  Now I can't get it to turn off.  There are a number of things that don't work anymore, and I didn't keep track of all the many things I had installed and used that are now not there.

I think there are a number of hidden files that should be removed prior to re-installing OS and then there is another whole set of things you need to do if moving to or from a another distro based OS.  I'll play around with this and post back.  It'll be awhile.

I've never had problems with archiving, it just seems to always work correctly for me.  What other aspects don't seem to be working for you?

When I've re-installed lately, I kept my /home partition from being formatted.  When I created the users for the system (in my case just root and the "normal" user), it seems that many of the files in ~/.config were overwritten.  That was okay by me, as I welcome the chance to re-decorate the place, so to speak.

Folders such as .mozilla and .thunderbird, on the other hand, were not touched.  Everything just worked.

Jot back and tell us more about what's not working.

Later On,
D

[weirdwolf]

Hay there yonnie
If this aint what you're talking about then pay it no nevermind.
Before I do a install I copy the hidden ".thunderbird"  file on a flash drive with my other stuff. When I do a reinstall as far as T-Bird goes, I install T-bird and then start it once and then kill it with out doing any of the setup stuff, then delete the ".thunderbird" directory and replace it with the one I copied from the old install and haven't had a problem yet with it.
Of course mind you, YMMV

[Just17]

Hay there yonnie
If this aint what you're talking about then pay it no nevermind.
Before I do a install I copy the hidden ".thunderbird"  file on a flash drive with my other stuff. When I do a reinstall as far as T-Bird goes, I install T-bird and then start it once and then kill it with out doing any of the setup stuff, then delete the ".thunderbird" directory and replace it with the one I copied from the old install and haven't had a problem yet with it.
Of course mind you, YMMV

If you copy the backup prior to launching T-Bird it should work .....  saves a step or two