From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 5 18:05:22 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 70C301065672 for ; Wed, 5 Mar 2008 18:05:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from a.j.werven@student.utwente.nl) Received: from smtp.utwente.nl (unknown [IPv6:2001:610:1908:1000:204:23ff:feb7:ef56]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD0948FC23 for ; Wed, 5 Mar 2008 18:05:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from a.j.werven@student.utwente.nl) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (vpn181236.student.utwente.nl [130.89.181.236]) by smtp.utwente.nl (8.12.10/SuSE Linux 0.7) with ESMTP id m25I4sO8022429; Wed, 5 Mar 2008 19:04:55 +0100 Message-ID: <47CEE0C8.9020602@student.utwente.nl> Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:04:56 +0000 From: "Alphons \"Fonz\" van Werven" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 (Windows/20080213) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tsu-Fan Cheng References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-UTwente-MailScanner-Information: Scanned by MailScanner. Contact servicedesk@icts.utwente.nl for more information. X-UTwente-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-UTwente-MailScanner-From: a.j.werven@student.utwente.nl X-Spam-Status: No Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: install/upgrade question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:05:22 -0000 Tsu-Fan Cheng wrote: > Can I only change/overwrite the /etc > /usr, etc but leave /home intact?? Depends. If your /home is a seperate partition AND you don't need to repartition (relabel) the disk, you should be ok. In disklabel, you'll find a newfs toggle. If you set this to N for a certain partition, that partition will not be reformatted and all data on it should be preserved if nothing strange happens. I've done this several times without problems, for example to preserve /home and/or my CVS repository between installs. I always kept backups though, in case something goes wrong during the install and the partition gets screwed up after all, which is unlikely but NOT impossible! If your /home is merely a directory on a larger partition (for example because it's symlinked to /usr/home or something), or if you need to repartition/relabel the disk, it gets tricky and you'll probably be better off restoring from a backup. Alphons -- All right, that does it Bill [Donahue]. I'm pretty sure that killing Jesus is not very Christian. -- pope Benedict XVI, South Park episode #158