Hi all,

I've spent weeks tweaking my N800, and I've installed several apps.

In anticipation of the new OS update that should be coming soon, what is the easiest way to back up all my settings so that I can get my N800 back to the customized way I like it?

I don't boot from MMC, unfortunately. I know a lot of people talk about reinstalling all their apps...blech...is there any way around this? What about particular apps' settings? How are those retained across flash upgrades?

Thanks,

Chris

This is a non-trivial question, unfortunately. Nokia's built in backup application really only backs up the built in stuff, although it does back up your repository list to make reinstalling your apps a bit easier. I keep the debs for all my commonly used programs & libraries on one of my SD cards and tar up some of the other stuff that I would loose if I were to reflash. Nokia really needs to use proper package management for the OS itself and make reflashing an option of last resort. Releasing new versions as a embedded image only is a really frustrating aspect of Maemo. The other thing I hate has been that Nokia has often only provided very general/vague information about what bugs got fixed and what features have been added in a given release. I have upgraded my 770 & n800 on more than one occasion only to be left feeling like "why did I waste an hour and a half of my life doing this again?"

Not that I disagree with you Rocketman, but...

The later versions of the Application Manager include some information in the backup list, however there are some good technical reasons why it could be problematic for end-users (think binary incompatibility etc.)

Also, any third party application can add their configuration directories to the backup server. Any which doesn't should have it raised as a bug against them.