really? So are you saying that with ubuntu you do not need to have a home partition? I did not backup my config files. I only backed-up ~/Documents . I am considering this as my backup strategy: rsync -auq --exclude --delete-excluded (on first run) ~/Pictures/* --exclude --delete-excluded (on first run) ~/Documents/* /media/bmike1//Settings rsync -auq --include ~/Pictures /media/bmike1//Pictures rsync -auq --include ~/Documents /media/bmike1//Documents everything except pictures probably will most likely not require much room so likely I will put them together on one drive. so I did verify that the problem is my user as I created another account and logged in and everything is fine As for your comment to backup my current data there is no need to because since everything has gone bonkers I haven't created any new files. So after my fresh install I'll restore my files with: rsync -aWq /media/bmike1/RedSanDisk /home/bmike1/Documents and everything should be fine. Here is something weird that happened: I was working on my computer and had a glass of wine. I then went to bed and woke at like 2AM. After waking I went into the computer room and had no internet. I went back to bed at this point to wake at 6 to find I still had no internet. So I called Cox to hear the familiar 'we don't support Linux but everything is fine on our end.' So I restart the computer and internet was back. On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 11:26 PM, Brian Cluff wrote: > I hope you haven't overwritten your files yet. If you aren't backing up > and restoring any config files then you aren't going be to restoring > anything that will fix your machine at all. All you'll be doing is writing > older versions of your files possibly loosing data. If you are backing up > configuration files, I would restore only those for now. > > I would actually recommend that you backup (not restore) all your current > data and then reinstall from scratch including starting fresh with new > config files. That way any weird situations you have going on with your > package dependencies will be eliminated. > > Then start your regular dist-upgrades, making sure to look over any files > it says it's going to remove for anything that looks necessary to the > system. > > If it is a user level configuration problem, you can check that by > creating a new user account and logging in with it. If everything is fine, > then you know you have something to fix with your account. If it still > broken, then look at the system itself and your user profile is probably > fine. > > If your user profile is fine, a little piece of trivia that you might not > already know is that when you do a fresh install of an Ubuntu system over > an existing install, but you uncheck the format option on the partition > that the system is going to be installed to, it will delete everything > except for the /home directory leaving your user account(s) intact. It > will even try and reinstall as much of the programs that you already had > installed so that the system will be back to where you left it, only > hopefully working this time. I've only done it a couple of times, but it's > worked well for me both times. > > Brian Cluff > > > On 01/09/2016 07:30 PM, Michael Havens wrote: > >> I was just going to enter the rsync text >> ('rsync -aWq /media/bmike1/RedSanDisk /home/bmike1/Documents') >> into a terminal ((I verified this goof only affects this user) when I >> realized I wasn't sure I had all of the nuances and I wanted to make >> sure I got it down right before I really screwed tings up. First: Here >> is the directory and file of the backup: >> >> bmike1@MikesBeast ~ $ ls /media/bmike1/RedSanDisk >> Documents >> >> Second: the rsync manpage talks about the trailing slash changing the >> behavior of the way it copies. I don't understand. >> >> 'rsync -aWuq --delete-before /home/bmike1/Documents >> /media/bmike1/RedSanDisk' >> >> seems to copy it the way I want. Does the slash affect the way it copies >> it back. Or else what does it do? >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> >> --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- :-)~MIKE~(-: