Martin Gregorie  wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 01:56:16 +0000, bob prohaska wrote:
>
> How did you update to Buster?

Clean install on Samsung Evo Plus 64 GB card. I used the Desktop
version, the previous setup was, I think, minimal.

This time I left the pi account undisturbed and made a second
personal account using adduser. That somehow set up a slightly
different DE compared to the pi account. Just how different isn't
obvious. The only clue is a four-toed foot icon in the menu bar,
replacing the raspberry icon which appears for the pi account.

> How will you do it in future?

Not sure. Still can't get cups to work right, but it's unclear
whether that's related to the choice of installed image.
>
>
> All my other systems run Fedora Linux, which was well behind Debian in
> implementing a version upgrade process. Consequently, every 6 months I
> had to do  ac lean install, which was a pain, if I was to run current
> software. However, it did teach me a lesson, which is that its a very
> good idea to make a copy of every file you change in /etc and its
> subdirectories and keep the copies in one of your normal login user. AND
> make regular backups of /home.
>

I'm using the Pi as a terminal and attempting to change as little
as possible. I do need occasionally to print. I don't want to
use the pi account for routine activity, preferring to treat it
more like root, which it really is. The Pi runs lots of xterms,
a browser, and maybe some personal productivity software from
time to time. It sits behind a DHCP router.


> This way, after a clean upgrade you simply:
>
> - restore your backup of /home
>

In this case I simply copied /home from the old microSD card
to the fresh install, which worked nicely.

> - add back the users and groups that aren't standard
>

> - work through the /etc copy, diffing each file, altering your copy as
> needed to include any new parameters and copy the result back to /etc/
> overwriting the newly installed version and restarting the service it
> configures or rebooting to check everythinf still works.
>
> However, making a complete system backup and immediately before doing a
> version upgrade is much easier: nonetheless, I still keep copies of
> anything I change in  /etc.
>

I didn't _think_ there were enough changes in /etc to cause serious
trouble, ie, I could just fix what went wrong manually. Maybe that's
over-optimistic.

> There is a fuller description, along with suggestions about how to
> include the contents of /usr/local in a backup of /home, here:
>
> http://www.libelle-systems.com/free/
>
Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

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