Sure. I'd use something like tar (there are other options, rsync, cp, cpio):

cd /media/usb-stick/

tar -pcvzf home.$USER.tar.gz /home/$USER

To unpack on new computer:

cd /

tar -xvzf /media/usb-stick/home.$USER.tar.gz

If you have any permission problems after, do this:

# own everything in your home dir by you.  This is usually safe/correct,

# unless you have some unusual permissions set up somewhere (like a directory

# for sharing files with other users on the system) 

chown -R $USER:$USER ~

Some problems you may run into:

• Disk Space: make sure your usb stick has enough space


• File size too big: If your home directory has more than 2G of files, you might create a file too big for a fat32 usb-stick. Either format it ext3, tar up partial directories, copy in batches or use another method to archive things (rsync, network copy it, etc)


• if you don't use tar, and use cp or rsync, you need to copy to a unix filesystem, like ext3. Copying to a fat usb-disk without using tar will mess up permissions.


• dot files: make sure if you do partial directories, you don't forget all the files in your home directory that start with a dot (hidden).