Revive corrupt user

[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2008-09-19 at 15:18 -0700, Aldo Foot wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Alex Makhlin <makhlina at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am an IT professional but quite new to Linux. I am using Fedora 9 and a
> > few times now, most of which have been my fault, I will experiment and/or
> > make some changes that would then give me errors while logged in as my
> > personal user or at times I cannot even get to the desktop. The only fix I
> > have found is a fix of a novice. I just create a new user, copy all my
> > personal files over to the new user, reset all of my preferences, and am
> > back up running again. Yesterday after running the latest Fedora updates, I
> > could no longer get to the desktop of my personal user so in the end I had
> > to go through the same process of creating a new user before I could login.
> > But I again had to go through the tedious task of copying my personal files
> > and personalising the settings of the new user.
> >
> > Here is the question: Is there any way to backup my existing user info so
> > that I can just restore the backup when I need to and have all of my user
> > preferences set the way I left them? I have tried backing up the "Home"
> > folder but after restoring it, I still had the same problem.
> >
> > Any help would be appreciated,
> > Alex
> >
> 
> 
> You need to make sure the hidden files from
> the source account get copied to the target
> account. If you use tar this is done automatically.
> 
> If you use the 'cp' command then change directories
> to the source directory and do "cp -r ./.* ../targetDir>"
> That only copies hidden files. Do "ls -a <targetDir>" to check.
> 
> Notice the syntax--   "./.*"    it's a dot, slash, dot, star.
> 
> Then copy no hidden files the normal way.
> 
> ~af
> 
It would bew bettewre to use tar -k which does not relace files that are
already there. There are gnome related files that show up in a new
directory which need to be kept.
--
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The last vestiges of the old Republic have been swept away. -- Governor
Tarkin
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net