[Solved] Copy /home directory to fresh install?

[Vrai]

Hello,
Long time Mint user here. About to do a 'fresh' or 'clean' install of Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon 64bit V2 on my Acer laptop which is currently dual booting Mint 18.3 and Manjaro.

My question is: will there be any deleterious effects if I make a back-up copy of my /home and then copy it over to the new Mint 19 installation?
I'm concerned about all the hidden files and folders which contain user data and/or configurations which may not be applicable any longer. Will there be any issues with old applications vs newer applications? Will any outdated or unneeded .(dot) files and folders just be ignored?

Thanks very much for any insight or advice.

[all41]

About to do a 'fresh' or 'clean' install of Linux Mint 19

Do the clean install but copy only your /home user files forward, but not the .hidden files .
It will be best to not apply every .hidden file to your newly installed system,
You can apply them one by one later and observe the effects.
Personally I never carry previous install configs forward

[gm10]

I'm concerned about all the hidden files and folders which contain user data and/or configurations which may not be applicable any longer. Will there be any issues with old applications vs newer applications? Will any outdated or unneeded .(dot) files and folders just be ignored?

It's usually fine, old format files get updates automatically, applications know to handle that, it's no different as if you had just updated just the application. There might be some settings issue if you were to use the home folder from your Manjaro (mostly because of different paths) but if it's the Mint 18.3 home folder then there's no problem.

[Vrai]

Thanks or the replies all41 and gm10.
I was hoping to save some configuration time but I think I rather prefer to keep things neat and tidy.

Hadn't thought of restoring the .hidden files one at a time. I may try a few and see how it goes. Thanks for the tip.

[all41]

Hadn't thought of restoring the .hidden files one at a time. I may try a few and see how it goes.

It's pretty easy to do this, just rename your .hidden files to something such as .hidden.original
Then copy your old config files to that directory--if there is a snag just delete the newly copied file and
rename the original