[PlanetCCRMA] Reloading

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

> This might be too generic a question for the list, but...
> 
> I'm finding that the Project CCRMA apt-get setup is working quite well,
> but have a lot of old cruft left over from previous attempts to get
> things working. I'm tempted to save critical configuration files (as
> well as my home directory) off to another partition, then reinstall
> a fairly bare-bones RedHat 7.3 from CDs, and rebuild from the 
> PlanetCCRMA RPMs. (I have those I've installed saved onto the other
> partition too, so fortunately I wouldn't have to trudge through
> downloading most of them over my dialup line again!)
> 
> Is there a good list somewhere of what configuration files I'd need
> to save in order to recreate my systems after reloading the OS?
> Or is this idea just completely nuts?

No, it is reasonable. A fairly safe bet would be to save a tarfile of the 
/etc directory, that is where most of the programs store their 
configuration. But there are a LOT of things stored there. In  particular 
look at /etc/sysconfig, that's where a lot of redhat configuration stuff 
goes. 

Hmmm, I'm trying to think of a way to weed out irrelevant stuff. You could
start by looking at the install history of your redhat packages to see
_when_ you first installed your current system. Do an:

  rpm -q -a --last | tail

and look at the last lines, those should have the date when you first 
installed the system. 

Then do a:
  ls -lt /etc | more 

that will list all files inside /etc ordered by time, pick a file that has
a creation time a little earlier than the install date of redhat, that
will for sure be a file that you have not modified. With the name of that
file you could find all files inside /etc that were modified _after_ that
time:

  find /etc -type f -newer /etc/whateverfile

Or if you want that ordered by time:

  find /etc -type f -newer /etc/whateverfile | xargs ls -lt | more

Or you could pick a files dated a little after the first install, that 
should pick files that were changed after the initial install of redhat. 

Still a lot of files, but I'm sure some of them will sound familiar and
you will be able to look at them in detail to see what changes you did to
them. 

Hope this helps. 
-- Fernando