Why do people always rush to do OS reinstalls so fast?

[hoppipolla]

I've never understood this lol

It seems like one tiny thing goes wrong on Windows and *poof* it's time for a reinstall!

I have always been able to save a machine as far as I can remember, save for I think a few times when I was messing around and totally trashed a linux installation lol

Sorry, just gets on my nerves sometimes xD

Reinstalling is the easy way out! And it's so damn time-consuming xD

Hoppi :)

[t0p]

Well, you touched on one reason - "Re-installing is the easy way out". People tend toward laziness, and sticking in an installation disk seems easier than analyzing and fixing a problem.

Ignorance is also a factor. In the past I re-installed because I didn't know how to fix a problem. The longer I use an OS, the more I learn, and re-installs become less frequent. In fact, I can't remember just now the last time I re-installed. I do clean installs when I'm upgrading to a new version, but re-installs? Nope.

There's also a "geek" (or problem-solver) factor. I enjoy figuring out what's wrong and how to fix it. But I'm sure that some people must hate it, even though they could solve the problem if they really needed to. If you've got all your data backed up, or if you have /home mounted on a separate partition, why not re-install? You can watch TV while the installer's working. Or drink a beer. Or entertain a friend of the opposite sex. Or a million and one other pleasurable pastimes that aren't so easy when you're up to your waist in config files.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well sometimes a reinstall can help, on both Windows and Linux I have reinstalled and sometimes it works better second time around.

[amitabhishek]

Or entertain a friend of the opposite sex.

LOL; I like the way you think...may be before reinstalling I would like to clean up my room ;).

[inobe]

most unsecured systems will need re-installation only because what was unleashed via payload over time, the failure rate is much higher when attempting to clean up, for example missing start menu/ control panel and most built in apps no longer function to a point where recovery console or in place upgrade only worsen the damage and one could only imagine how much of the payload still exists.

of course a new user and an unsecured os is doomed from the begining !

reverse the scenario' what do you have ?

[fuzzyk.k]

I reinstall for the fun of testing the new systems, I guess i love testing them out

[hanzomon4]

I've never understood this lol

It seems like one tiny thing goes wrong on Windows and *poof* it's time for a reinstall!

I have always been able to save a machine as far as I can remember, save for I think a few times when I was messing around and totally trashed a linux installation lol

Sorry, just gets on my nerves sometimes xD

Reinstalling is the easy way out! And it's so damn time-consuming xD

Hoppi :)

I use to have a no reinstall policy... Now I'll reinstall if I don't feel like fixing the problem and I don't have anything to lose. It simply a time saver. I'm talking about Ubuntu, I haven't used a windows box in almost 5 years.

[bruno9779]

I have tried to get Cuda apps to work on my system a month ago: It completely messed up my graphics and my kernel version.
I tried to fix it for 2 hours, than i just reinstalled in 30 min.
Of course I have everything backed up

[inobe]

this title looks good too..

"why do we always break stuff"

[earthpigg]

efficiency.

time it will take to fix the problem (counting the time spent waiting for ubuntuforums.org responses, if google has failed): unknown. somewhere between the time you have already spent and over 9,000 hours.

time it will take to back up /home, export a list of packages installed to a plaintext file, reinstall, selectively restore dotfiles in /home, and maybe have apt-get install aforementioned packages: one hour.


if you have spent 3 hours trying to fix the problem and made zero headway, perhaps it is time to cut losses?

unless you want to learn, of course. which is entirely up to you. maybe you have a school or work project that needs to be done today.

granted, however, its been well over a year since i broke a Linux install. and, usually when it did happen, it was because i was doing something silly because i still had a Windows mentality.

RTFM and follow the conventional wisdom, and nothing breaks unexpectedly. amazing how that works, huh? :D

[pmlxuser]

well i tell you will ubuntu installation taking about 10 minutes i find it easier to just reinstall than spend 50 minutes searching for solution in the forumn or google. lol i guess am just very lazy. am the kind that trashes a system on purpose just to learn a few things and then well (with data backed and all the updates backed ) all i can do is reinstall place all the debs in /var/cache/apt/archives and upgrade am back.

lol laziness is the best thing offered to the human race
Imagine if we worked like ants, life would be boring yeah

[matthew.ball]

There's also a "geek" (or problem-solver) factor. I enjoy figuring out what's wrong and how to fix it. But I'm sure that some people must hate it, even though they could solve the problem if they really needed to. If you've got all your data backed up, or if you have /home mounted on a separate partition, why not re-install? You can watch TV while the installer's working. Or drink a beer. Or entertain a friend of the opposite sex. Or a million and one other pleasurable pastimes that aren't so easy when you're up to your waist in config files.
I've been using Linux for a while, but never done a re-install.

When I first started using Linux (for a brief stint in 2004) my older brother recommended using a separate /home partition, that computer eventually died (hardware related :(), but I never did a re-install, never exploited the fact /home was separate...

Now, I've had this Ubuntu install since January, with a separate /home partition again.

All the programs I *currently* have installed are pretty much the perfect system for me - I have heard it is possible to "save" my current installed software? I have a very messy hard drive (lots of stuff installed and removed over the months - I must have tried every IM client available before settling on Pidgin and removing the rest, etc), and I don't want any of this to be recorded as my currently installed software...

Are there any methods of "clean-up" I should be doing? For instance my /home/user directory has become a fair sized mess, .tomboy dir, even though tomboy was removed, there are a few others.
Ubuntu Tweak offers a package cleaner with a 4 different categories, I have been tempted to just click "clean", but if it removes stuff I want I'd be sad :p
I've been putting it off for a while, but I have been meaning to make this post. Sorry for hi-jacking the thread.

Basically, I am considering starting clean with Karmic, and just throwing on anything I need that doesn't come by default.

[cmay]

My office PC is a no reinstall but the rest of them I will reinstall if there is time to be saved. it takes an hour to find a disk of something else that boots and make some coffee.I have at the moment seven old computers and I want to give some of them away but I am not going to spend any time fixing something if it on a pc i will give away soon. they need to just work and the distribution i find for it should just work with the hardware out of the box. if it does not i reinstall. it is because of the person i will give it way to since they are most likely not used to using linux.

[Exodist]

I've never understood this lol

It seems like one tiny thing goes wrong on Windows and *poof* it's time for a reinstall!

I have always been able to save a machine as far as I can remember, save for I think a few times when I was messing around and totally trashed a linux installation lol

Sorry, just gets on my nerves sometimes xD

Reinstalling is the easy way out! And it's so damn time-consuming xD

Hoppi :)


You said it,, Its just easy.

Besides when you have fixed the problem the "hardway" many times over. You get to the point in your life your just tired of this worless **** and just want to use the damn computer.

Besides most issues in windows nowadays is spyware. quick reformat/reinstall leaves you with the confidence you cleaned house for the mean time.

Linux on the other hand I dont jump to reinstall after goofing something up. I have the confidence in this OS that "I can fix it". Windows on the other hand is just "plug and pray".

[wilee-nilee]

If you reinstall with the CLI disc and you have all of your downloads saved a reinstall is a pretty fast, you just have to add your choice desktop and have synaptic read the download file.

Not everybody has the time or skills to fix a problem. I will say though that I reinstall as a last resort, if the fix is taking longer then the re-imaging.

[blueturtl]

It seems like one tiny thing goes wrong on Windows and *poof* it's time for a reinstall!
(Emphasis added).

After years and years of using Windows you tend to know which problems are fixable and which aren't. The problem with Windows is that it has become unmanageable. When something breaks, you can't always fix it since you can't know what went wrong without knowing how the system operates. You can't know what's happening inside because it is a black box.

For example, after upgrading to Windows 98 I began using the IE 5 browser bundled with the OS. After installing some plug-ins random images on web sites would simply fail to load. I'd just get a red 'x' on many spots that were supposed to be occupied by images. Logically, I went and uninstalled the plug-ins. It did not work. I reinstalled IE. It did not work. Something in the registry I guess, but how would I ever know what? Reinstalling everything starts looking more and more tempting as hours go by without any knowledge as to what the problem might be... Google is none the wiser.

Another example! I install a peer reviewed P2P client from a well known site. I think maybe Download.com but I can't remember the name of the client, because I was in fact trying out many to find out which one would suit my needs. As soon as the client comes up, my internet connection dies. I reboot, but the connection doesn't come up. I look at the network preferences, no settings changed. I decide to uninstall this bad bad app that broke the internet. It still won't work. I check to see I'm getting an IP address: I do, but still there is no connectivity. I'm getting frustrated. There is nothing obviously wrong: the drivers are fine, the settings are fine and the connection is fine, but Windows has just lost it after some random freeware app was installed. I end up reinstalling the OS.

You can never know beforehand what might make the system break, so you become neurotic slowly but surely. You only use apps that are tried and tested and you start to fear doing anything with the system that might accidentally break it. You don't install programs, or new exotic hardware. You don't want to try to run two programs simultaneously because the end result might be an mp3 file with skips in it. You adapt yourself for the sake of the OS.

I swore I'd never go to Windows XP. It was as bad back then as Vista is considered to be today. A system with ridiculous hardware requirements, DRM and that stupid Pooch whenever you wanted to search for files. But ah, everyone said -- this is the best Microsoft OS ever. It is stable, it doesn't crash or break like the old crappy Win9x series does. No more BSODs or cryptic "Illegal operation" messages. Besides, to run any decent hardware you'd have to upgrade anyway as soon driver support for Windows 95/98 would dry up.

Eventually I get a license for Windows XP through my employer at the time. I figure why not give XP a fair shot. After all my techie friends all tell me I'm such a noob for still running DOS. Soon it dawns on me this system is no better. Just a glorified front-end to an ever increasing complex monster under the hood. DOS I at least knew something about. This 'NT' just liked to stay hidden.

After my first BSOD on Windows XP I installed Ubuntu and I haven't looked back.

Of course the way I first used Linux was very similar to how I used Windows. I was just afraid that the whole thing would break if I tried to do anything on it. But after a couple of issues, bugs and the reassuring help here at the forums I quickly got over it. I awakened. All these years I had learned little if anything about the inner workings of my computer, of the operating system. Linux was different. It wasn't trying to hide anything. Everything was out there to be tinkered with. No obscure registry, just human readable text files. How awesome!

So to tie this all back together: what others have already said about reinstalling being easy is often true, but not in the way that automatically makes it the solution. Reinstalling Windows is a pain. Unless you have a disk image, you have to hunt down and install all the drivers, all the applications and restore all the settings to how they were before reinstalling. The reason we go through the pain often, is that in spite of how horrible it is -- it is still easier than trying to figure out what is wrong with Windows or how to fix it.

</rant>

[etnlIcarus]

Honestly, if I'd known how much time I'd waste trying (unsucesfully) to un-root my XP install because Catalyst decided to be a bitch, I would have just reinstalled from the get-go.

At this point, I've wasted days following every two-bit piece of advice I've found on the net and still, I'm getting error messages on startup and bits and pieces of CCC are still scattered around my HDD and shell.

Often, reinstalling isn't the easy way out; I dread the reinstall I'm about to do. It's just the choice that will best preserve your sanity.

(Also, when dealing with older hardware, no matter how hard you try, you're never going to 'clean up' an install to the point where it's performance is on-par with that of a fresh install).

[handy]

Using Arch, I usually upgrade every day, which is certainly different (as in really easy & fast, supplying you with somewhere near a cutting edge Linux system with just what you want & nothing more in it) than doing a reinstall.

A vastly superior method from my experience.

[Tristam Green]

It seems like one tiny thing goes wrong on Windows and *poof* it's time for a reinstall!

I think you misspelled Linux :D

Kidding, though - I've reinstalled operating systems and I do rebuilds all the time at work. It's a sort of panacea really, and in some cases it's just more efficient (especially if you have image software and a base image to start from) than troubleshooting some obscure error because of software-software interaction.

[keplerspeed]

When I was first learning how to use linux, I did a lot of reinstalls. That was because I fiddled and played and stuffed things up way beyond any way that I could of, at that time and skill level, got back to a working desktop.

So then I would reinstall, fiddle and play, stuff it up, try to fix it, and If I couldnt, reinstall. Most distros are so easy to install, it doesnt really matter. When you dont know what your doing, it works to reinstall.

For me now, yes it may be the lazy easy way out. A year ago I had no clue. Remember you have to start somewhere.

[TombKing]

Well coming from a tech support background. If I have a good OS image to lay down in about 2 hours I can back up the data and reimage (and work on other stuff while the OS loads), hand the user back a clean machine with no issues, or spend 6 hours cleaning up every little bit of malware infestation out of the registry, etc. and still not be sure it will work right.

What would you rather do. What if a company was losing a workers productivity over the wait time to get the computer back? What if you have 10 computers to get through in a day?

This is where the take off and nuke it from orbit attitude comes from.

Not sure how screwed up someone with just user access could make a linux/unix box to the point of wiping and starting over, but at least damage can get contained.

[pookiebear]

bingo, registry bloat or registry corruption from malware. Sometimes the answer is ONLY format and reload.

[BrokenKingpin]

I usually give a good attempt to fix something, and if I cant I do a re-image. I keep Clonezilla backups of all my machines so if something breaks I am back up and running in 15 minutes :)

[khelben1979]

Well sometimes a reinstall can help, on both Windows and Linux I have reinstalled and sometimes it works better second time around.

When it comes to Linux, I never need to reinstall it. And since I use Debian I just upgrade the system once they get available without serious problems which can't be fixed.

On the powerbook: Debian Woody (2004) - Debian Lenny (2009) without a single reinstall.

[bedhead75]

I've been having to run Windows XP in Virtualbox with Jaunty host in order to watch Netflix films online through Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in. One day Silverlight stopped working properly and caused the browser (IE or Firefox) to freeze up. Apparently it was freezing when viewing any videos with DRM, and a reinstall of Silverlight or Firefox didn't solve the problem. Upgrading to the latest version of IE also didn't help. I can only guess that it was one of window's updates that caused the problem and I couldn't find any way to fix it other than to reinstall XP.
I've never had to reinstall Ubuntu to fix any problems though.

[hoppipolla]

I've been having to run Windows XP in Virtualbox with Jaunty host in order to watch Netflix films online through Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in. One day Silverlight stopped working properly and caused the browser (IE or Firefox) to freeze up. Apparently it was freezing when viewing any videos with DRM, and a reinstall of Silverlight or Firefox didn't solve the problem. Upgrading to the latest version of IE also didn't help. I can only guess that it was one of window's updates that caused the problem and I couldn't find any way to fix it other than to reinstall XP.
I've never had to reinstall Ubuntu to fix any problems though.

Yeah I guess with some things there is little alternative. I just always got surprised how quickly people jumped at it particularly on Windows, when yeah maybe a part of it is the challenge but I always used to sit there and slave away until it worked hehe :)

I guess there are different ways to approach a problem that's the thing!

I would reinstall, but for me it's just this last resort I prefer not to have to do! :)

[magmon]

I've never understood this lol

It seems like one tiny thing goes wrong on Windows and *poof* it's time for a reinstall!

I have always been able to save a machine as far as I can remember, save for I think a few times when I was messing around and totally trashed a linux installation lol

Sorry, just gets on my nerves sometimes xD

Reinstalling is the easy way out! And it's so damn time-consuming xD

Hoppi :)

I can save windows from nearly anything these days, but I can't speed it up after it's done its hereditary slow down.

[dragos240]

Well. If one problem occurs, and they're not the "computer expert" of the house, they automatically reinstall, it's the only thing they know how to do.

[ChrT]

I guess I'm the opposite of that stereotype, I've still got a fully functional Fedora Core 5 box, which was installed on the 22nd of March 2006. But, granted, it is just a headless storage/backup box that I just keep adding SATA cards and drives to as I need them, and I don't really use it for much else.

[coldReactive]

And it's so damn time-consuming xD

That depends on what OS you use. I find Ubuntu less time consuming than Windows.

[Goveynetcom]

People are lazy, and it's a real easy way to fix something without much effort. I have done it a few times, when I was working on a system that had been damaged badly by viruses and it didn't really have anything important on it, I said "Hey, why not?".

[coldReactive]

People are lazy, and it's a real easy way to fix something without much effort. I have done it a few times, when I was working on a system that had been damaged badly by viruses and it didn't really have anything important on it, I said "Hey, why not?".

This is why all my documents are on my flash drive. So I can easily reformat and reinstall. In fact, every new ubuntu version, I reformat/reinstall.

[hoppipolla]

This is why all my documents are on my flash drive. So I can easily reformat and reinstall. In fact, every new ubuntu version, I reformat/reinstall.

But why? It updates so well anyway right?

[coldReactive]

But why? It updates so well anyway right?

From my experience, I always had issues upgrading from one ubuntu version to another, so I always reinstall.

[Shibblet]

Well, you touched on one reason - "Re-installing is the easy way out". People tend toward laziness, and sticking in an installation disk seems easier than analyzing and fixing a problem.

Really, the easy way out? It might be the easy way to get the system up and running again, but backing up data on a messed up system is never easy.

A preemptive strike is the only way to make it truly easy. Make a drive image. Restore if necessary.

But in the case of Windows, sometimes it just can't be fixed, and a re-installation is your only course of action. Someone installs a program that runs in the background (McAfee, or any kind of Malware) just TRY, TRY I TELL YOU, to get that sucker out of the OS.

Time to boot your Windows CD and re-install.

As the "computer fix-it" guy in my family. When someone comes to me with a "Can you fix my computer, it's really running slow." I just know it's going to be an re-installation. There's really no other way to do it with Windows.

[coldReactive]

Time to boot your Windows CD and re-install.

Just remember that if it's not a recovery disk of windows, that you may have issues in the future if you keep doing that. I can no longer activate my Windows XP (over the internet) because I re-installed so much. I have to call Microsoft and have them activate, but since support for Windows XP has ended........

[hoppipolla]

From my experience, I always had issues upgrading from one ubuntu version to another, so I always reinstall.

Oh ok, no I dunno why that is I have never had issues, but I guess it's different on every machine.

I mean, sometimes bugs arise or they get fixed, something always CHANGES, but I've never had serious problems. :)

[t0p]

Tell ya what though: never mind reinstalling, sometimes plain old installing seems like too much hassle!

Consider, for instance, my home desktop machine. It's running Hardy, and I was thinking maybe I'd do another install when the next LTS comes out (that'll be Leaping Llama or something, right?). But then I thought: do I really want to go through all that so soon? I've got that Hardy set up just how I like it, all the software and config and whatever... and I don't have a separate /home partition on it, so that means more grief... and maybe I'll just leave Hardy on it til the ******* machine breaks and I've gotta throw it on the tip.

I'm the complete opposite when it comes to my EeePC - I had Intrepid on it, now Jaunty, and I fully intend to go with Karmic when it comes out. But the desktop? Hell, Hardy'll be fine for a good few more years yet...

[hoppipolla]

Tell ya what though: never mind reinstalling, sometimes plain old installing seems like too much hassle!

Consider, for instance, my home desktop machine. It's running Hardy, and I was thinking maybe I'd do another install when the next LTS comes out (that'll be Leaping Llama or something, right?). But then I thought: do I really want to go through all that so soon? I've got that Hardy set up just how I like it, all the software and config and whatever... and I don't have a separate /home partition on it, so that means more grief... and maybe I'll just leave Hardy on it til the ******* machine breaks and I've gotta throw it on the tip.

I'm the complete opposite when it comes to my EeePC - I had Intrepid on it, now Jaunty, and I fully intend to go with Karmic when it comes out. But the desktop? Hell, Hardy'll be fine for a good few more years yet...

What is the advantage to not upgrading to the latest Ubuntu? Stability?

[Tharkun]

It's running Hardy, and I was thinking maybe I'd do another install when the next LTS comes out (that'll be Leaping Llama or something, right?).


Lucid Lynx actually

[Tipped OuT]

Really, the easy way out? It might be the easy way to get the system up and running again, but backing up data on a messed up system is never easy.

A preemptive strike is the only way to make it truly easy. Make a drive image. Restore if necessary.

But in the case of Windows, sometimes it just can't be fixed, and a re-installation is your only course of action. Someone installs a program that runs in the background (McAfee, or any kind of Malware) just TRY, TRY I TELL YOU, to get that sucker out of the OS.

Time to boot your Windows CD and re-install.

As the "computer fix-it" guy in my family. When someone comes to me with a "Can you fix my computer, it's really running slow." I just know it's going to be an re-installation. There's really no other way to do it with Windows.

Um... when ever I re-install an OS, I back up my important data that I do not want to lose on a thumb drive, and do a fresh install. Done...

And I feel sorry for those of you who still use Virus scanners. I've got rid of those a long time ago. I'm smart enough not download files from un known source and just launch them like nobody's business.

By the way, Virus scanners slow down your system a lot.

[foremannz]

In terms of me, I like to figure out the problem and the cause, so that I can better understand what went wrong and what not to do again, then check if the computer is still stable after resolving the problem. I also run Ubuntu with Firefox and Noscript - thats pretty much all I've done to make a nice stable internet computer.

However, I have no control over what my customers install, so my emphasis is on fixing the computer to a budget the customer is willing to pay - if that means only 30 minutes limit to try and solve the problem, then from there its recomended that a reinstall might be a better option, because at least the problem will be resolved within an expected cost.

I also recomend the customer run a security app on their computer, because they have no understanding of impact of installing random applications, so if that means we spend $20 to upgrade the RAM to make the computer work better with the security app, its a cost the customer is willing to pay for the added peace of mind element.

[HappyFeet]

When in business for yourself, reinstalling is almost always the best method to "fix" windows. Scans of viruses and malware can take a LONG time. (most calls I get are because of viruses/severe neglect) Not to mention running system file checker. Then, on top of that, there is still no 100% guarantee that you have removed all malware. The only guarantee is to reinstall. Besides, I have gotten so good at it, that it really doesn't take that long. I have all drivers on me, and all applications ready to be reinstalled. This is the only way to give my customers my a "perfect" computer. Well, as perfect as windows can be.

As far as my linux box, I don't know, as I've never had to fix it or my customers machines running linux. It always runs perfect.

[sdlynx]

Reasons I reinstall after giving a good 2 days into trying to fix Windows and its not working:
a)I'm lazy.
b)There's already random junk that might as well get cleaned up but I was too lazy to even reinstall earlier and backup stuff.
c)I'm getting back at Windows the easy way.

[HappyFeet]

I have to admit though, that when I first started using linux, reinstalling was the best option for me. All of my problems were my fault, so I just made sure not to do the same thing again. Now I have the perfect linux box because I don't do stupid stuff anymore.

[dmglouis]

Thankfully, I've never had to re-install. However, I always perform a clean-install of new releases of ubuntu.

My brother did re-install xp once though. His computer was built my this crappy builder who managed to install substandard parts. One day, his computer starts bluescreening. He could never figure out why so he re-installed xp. It still bluescreened but not as often.

[Khakilang]

Actually I prefer house cleaning. Clean up cache, config or junk file. Unless I got a severe system clash or hard disk clash than only I would reinstall my OS. Just to test out whether its the hardware or software problem.

[Sean Moran]

With the re-install on problem systems, it might come back to how quickly one can accomplish it, and I refer to the old WIndows 98 I used to run on the desktop, and lately, this current distro of Ubuntu 9.04, but it's a fine art to get a good working system ready to replace on a newly formatted partition if something unexpected happens.

Never happened that I've made an hash off an Ubuntu install yet, but I've tried to replicate the old system that proved the best on Win98 when things might have turned sour on a working system. Back then it was just a little 100Mb executable zip file that I could run from a 16.bit MS-DOS prompt after a format and the old fsdisk/mbr to clear any gremlins from the system, and then restore the 32bit long-filename happy system straight from there. Around 15 minutes from a reformat and only 5 minutes if the 32-bit restore was all that was required. Have a coffee while pkzip did it's job.

By separating as much code and data onto two partitions, reinstalling the C: was faster than bothering to search for an unknown problem, and as anyone who has ever tried Windows 98 would know, it was the kind of O/S that was best reinstalled fresh at the end of each month anyway.

With Linux Ubuntu, it's very quick (if you have a standard filesystem to work from and your /home directory or the important parts thereof safely tucked away on a SEPARATE PARTITION), to start 'carte blanc' to reinstall straight across partitions using something like rsync or squashfs, although UUIDs within /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab can be a little bit of adjusting if caught unawares, but once the CODE and DATA (for want of better terms) are divided nicely onto separate partitons, it's IMHO generally faster to just replace a CODE system I have managed to stuff up with one of the known good ones that have been preserved and already have the right config, than to go troubleshooting into things that I may or may not see the error in immediately.

To reply with a personal opinion of an answer to this question, after setting things up and making sure that the standard fresh configuration of a system will do the right things with the data on ANOTHER partition, it's simply the fastest way if something goes wrong (which I haven't enjoyed as of yet with Ubuntu) to just wipe the lot and restore it straight from what it was meant to be from the start - your niicely configured working CODE system.

I hope that this is not written too confusingly and am not suggesting anyone go and reformat their hard disk to test it out, but after you prepare the system the way you like it, it's very rare that things DO go wrong, and if so, less than 15 minutes to put everything back the way it was, by working from a 're-install' sort of basis, although quick and easy from another partition rather than having to use the CD, although that's only twice as long, so when I think of how much troubleshooting I could do mucking around in the console with unknown problems, I prefer to think of the actuall root filesystem as a bit of a consumable commodity, to be chucked out and reinstalled ASAP whenever the need arises.