Re: Need Distro Recommendation

[Ole Laursen <olau hardworking dk>]

cr <cr orcon net nz> writes:


[...]

> Just as a matter of interest, if one replaces (say) a Red Hat distro
> of Linux, with a Debian one, what happens to all ones files on the
> drives? And particularly stuff like browser settings, Kmail folders
> and so on. Are they retained the same way as they are when upgrading
> from one RedHat version to a later one?

I don't think there is an upgrade option that works like that in
Debian. But it depends on how you partitioned the disk. If you have a
separate partition for /home, then it can easily be retained so you
don't have to backup anything (but I would backup the most important
data anyway, just to be sure) except perhaps some system configuration
in /etc.

Else I think the easiest way to go is to backup the home directory,
install from scratch and then copy it back. That's what I did when I
switched from Red Hat to Debian - of course, it took a little extra
time, but mostly because I used the opportunity to clean up some of my
mess.

IMO, the most time-consuming part of installing Debian is that of
choosing what packages to install. There are so many.

-- 
Ole Laursen
http://www.cs.auc.dk/~olau/