So everybody is talking about a cool new Windows 8 feature called ‘Push Button Reset’. It will reset settings in Windows 8 to day #1. You can do the same with Linux / Unix, just run the command given below:
Warning: Do not run the following command on prods as upon executing this will halt your system and reset all basic settings.
At boot you need to change the root password, set new network configuration, time config, keyboard config, auth config (like use ldap or pam etc), and services config. Like Windows 8 IE/MSoffice, it will not modify Linux apps settings. Personally, I prefer editing individual files.
This is not a new feature as Windows 8 fan boys are claiming to be and it’s been around for ages. My best guess is that MS-Windows 8 users are going to use this feature frequently :P
Note: I’ve tested sys-unconfig on Solaris and RHEL. I’m not sure about Ubuntu but debconf provides similar features.
Note, this is not “reset ‘Linux’” but is instead “reset some particular _distributions_ of Linux” to a default state.
On my Slackware system (still Linux, just a different distro), there is no sys-unconfig command at all.
You should change the title to better represent the actual content.
It’s important to clarify that sys-unconfig does not wipe out ANY personal data or configs. It resets SOME system settings (network, ssh host keys, selinux, time and some others for Fedora and similar distributions as an example), but certainly not all.
Although its not “push button reset” I recommend using Clonezilla to backup your root and home partitions. Easy to do a restore if things get foobar’d. Especially useful if you like to run developmental software like Ubuntu+1 or Fedora Rawhide