On 12/22/23 13:41, Fred via openSUSE Users wrote:

Internet search is going nowhere on this: I have a backup of my home dir from OS 15.0 and am going to do a fresh install of 15.5, with the idea that I can restore the home backup. Not having done this before, what issues do you see me having? I have a crapload of stuff on this system that, although dated, is working. I would hate to break it.

Obviously all the documents are no prob, ditto the pictures (I started to say images but that would conjure up a different "image"). The shared dir with VirtualBox is ok but I think that I would have to install the latest VB, which has its own problem with finding the product codes of the win systems there. I seem to remember looking in the registry for that info. Maybe things like browser history or bookmarks or saved passwords (not sure where they are stored, maybe not in /home) I am not sure what else is going to blindside me, which is the reason for the shout out.

Thanks

It shouldn't be bad at all. The VB issue can be a pain, but the tools with both VB 6.X and VB 7.X can help get the VMs running. Worse case you have to hack a line or two of the VM conf file to rename the network device, etc.. Desktop isn't an issue either. If the config ends up borked, just delete the desktop config directory (or fricking files in the case of plasma and the asinine decision to dump all config files under ~/.config instead of in a subdirectory like every other desktop on earth does) Documents as you say are no problem. Install 15.5 and before you do anything, create a backup of the bare home, e.g. # cd /home # mkdir -p sav # tar -cJf sav/${USER}-home-bare.tar.xz $USER Now restore your old home directory and see how it goes. Worst case, you can just nuke the restored home and restore the bare home and start over. I really don't think you are going to have many issues outside tweaking VB and any desktop config you have. That should be doable. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.