Hey everyone! I recently had a major issue with my Fedora KDE 42 installation, and as it turns out, creating a new user account solved all my problems! Huge thanks to everyone who suggested that! Now I'm wondering if I can proceed with replacing my old user account with this new one. After I copy over all my files from the old account's home directory to the new one (while leaving the configuration files untouched), can I delete the old user account, erase its home partition, and then rename my new account and its home partition to match the old one? I've been using the same username for 15 years, and adjusting to a new one would be quite the challenge. Also, I have a ton of scripts that are tied to the old home directory, so I want to make sure everything remains intact. Additionally, what's the best method for transferring my files to keep the permissions intact while assigning them to the new user? Thanks in advance!
2 Answers
Yes, that should be doable! Renaming the old user to something like `old_username_deprecated` could simplify things. Then, follow the steps outlined in this guide for changing usernames on Linux to make sure everything goes smoothly. Just a heads-up: when you run the `usermod` command to change the home directory and group name, there's sometimes an issue where it doesn't update the group correctly. It might require some extra steps to fix. Let me know if you need any help with that!
I’d recommend checking out a few resources for this. There are guides available that should cover how to migrate your files and manage permissions effectively. Also, it's important to think about whether you need to change the UID and GID of your new user to match the old one. It could affect file ownership and access in some cases, but it's not always necessary. If you don’t have any specific applications depending on the UID/GID, you should be fine!
I’ve been curious about that too! What exactly does changing the UID and GID affect in practice? Is it just for permissions, or are there other things I should consider?
Thanks for sharing that tip! I already tried the renaming step, but while changing the home directory, it didn’t update the group as I expected. Any advice on how to change the group name for the files in the home directory?