From: Brian Hall 

Jeff Shultz wrote:

> I'm going to have to transfer all the user files and configuration info
> from one box to the other... including users and groups... transparently.
> I know that this can be done... is it as simple as simply copying over
> /etc/passwd, /etc/groups and /etc/shadow and then starting to copy over
> /home? Followed by various config files?

The problem you might run into that way is if some of the groups or system
users had files and directories stored with a different number on the new
install. I ran into that switching from SuSE to Debian. On SuSE, my user id
was user number 501 and user number 500 under Debian. I ended up with a lot
of files showing user number 501 owned them instead of me. Easily fixed
with the chown command, but easy to avoid too.

Compare the user and group numbers in /etc/passwd and /etc/group from the
old install to the new install. Fold spindle and mutilate as necessary.

Since you are changing from one version of Mandrake to another, you
probably won't need to change anything.

Brian

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