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How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?

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  How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> - 2015-01-03 22:11 +0000
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-03 22:25 +0000
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Grant <omg@grrr.id.au> - 2015-01-04 09:48 +1100
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jack Strangio  <jackstrangio@yahoo.com> - 2015-01-04 01:36 +0000
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-01-04 03:43 +0000
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2015-01-04 21:31 +0000
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> - 2015-01-05 18:30 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 19:17 +0000
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-05 13:48 -0600
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 21:04 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-05 13:48 -0600
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 21:08 +0000
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-05 15:23 -0600
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 21:29 +0000
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Mladen Gogala <gogala.mladen@gmail.com> - 2015-01-06 01:29 +0000
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> - 2015-01-05 13:22 -0800
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2015-01-05 21:32 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2015-03-06 01:44 -0500
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-03-06 16:19 +0000
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-01-04 12:16 +0000
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-04 13:33 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-04 14:00 +0000
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-04 08:29 -0600
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-04 15:06 +0000
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised   changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-04 09:31 -0600
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> - 2015-01-04 09:29 -0800
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised   changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-04 18:25 +0000
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-01-04 17:56 +0000
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-04 18:20 +0000
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-04 23:30 +0000
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 11:15 +0000
                  Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 12:33 +0000
                    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 12:49 +0000
                      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 13:10 +0000
                        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 13:36 +0000
                          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> - 2015-01-05 18:56 +0000
                    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-05 15:13 +0100
                      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2015-01-05 12:31 -0800
                    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? notbob <notbob@nothome.com> - 2015-01-05 16:05 +0000
                      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2015-01-05 18:05 +0100
                        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 18:12 +0000
                          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2015-01-06 09:56 +0100
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-04 08:21 -0600
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-01-04 18:04 +0000
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> - 2015-01-05 18:43 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-05 13:48 -0600
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-01-05 19:51 +0000
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> - 2015-01-04 17:18 -0600
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> - 2015-01-04 17:26 -0600
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-01-04 18:57 -0500
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2015-01-04 16:07 -0800
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-01-04 19:57 -0500
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-01-05 01:01 +0000
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-01-04 23:20 -0500
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-01-05 06:49 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> - 2015-01-04 18:40 -0800
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? notbob <notbob@nothome.com> - 2015-01-05 16:02 +0000
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2015-01-05 12:42 -0800
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-01-06 04:08 +0000
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2015-01-05 22:01 -0800
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-06 06:59 +0000
                  Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2015-01-06 10:00 +0100
                    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? notbob <notbob@nothome.com> - 2015-01-06 14:59 +0000
    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-05 14:21 +0100
      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 13:35 +0000
        Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-05 15:14 +0100
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 14:25 +0000
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-05 16:18 +0100
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised  changes? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2015-01-05 09:35 -0600
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? notbob <notbob@nothome.com> - 2015-01-05 16:16 +0000
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 16:20 +0000
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? notbob <notbob@nothome.com> - 2015-01-05 16:50 +0000
                  Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 18:12 +0000
                    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 19:20 +0000
                      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 21:05 +0000
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-05 23:25 +0100
                  Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-05 22:48 +0000
                    Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-06 19:11 +0100
                      Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Tim Watts <tw_usenet@dionic.net> - 2015-01-06 18:28 +0000
          Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2015-01-05 15:50 +0000
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-01-05 16:30 +0000
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2015-01-05 10:51 -0600
                Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-05 19:20 +0000
            Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> - 2015-01-05 23:26 +0100
              Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes? John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2015-01-05 16:43 -0600

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#13285

On 05/01/15 17:05, Aragorn wrote:
> On Monday 05 January 2015 17:05, notbob conveyed the following to
> comp.os.linux.misc...
>
>> On 2015-01-05, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> what nooob would ever use reiserFS?
>>
>> I used it for yrs and am not a noob.  I bailed on rfs3 when it was
>> discovered that rfs would lose data over time.
>
> I too have used reiserfs.  As soon as it came out in Mandrake, I started
> using it, because it was the first (and at that time, the only) Linux
> filesystem with B-trees and journaling.  Later on XFS ─ which I like
> very much ─ became available, and then I started using that instead.
>

I've been using XFS for a long time with few problems (less than ext* 
given that some of my usage scenarios made ext* a poor choice).

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#13315

On Monday 05 January 2015 19:12, Tim Watts conveyed the following to 
comp.os.linux.misc...

> On 05/01/15 17:05, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> On Monday 05 January 2015 17:05, notbob conveyed the following to
>> comp.os.linux.misc...
>>
>>> On 2015-01-05, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> what nooob would ever use reiserFS?
>>>
>>> I used it for yrs and am not a noob.  I bailed on rfs3 when it was
>>> discovered that rfs would lose data over time.
>>
>> I too have used reiserfs.  As soon as it came out in Mandrake, I
>> started using it, because it was the first (and at that time, the
>> only) Linux
>> filesystem with B-trees and journaling.  Later on XFS ─ which I like
>> very much ─ became available, and then I started using that instead.
> 
> I've been using XFS for a long time with few problems (less than ext*
> given that some of my usage scenarios made ext* a poor choice).

Well, in all fairness, ext4 is pretty good.  It uses hashed trees by 
default ─ this was still considered experimental and had to be enabled 
separately in ext3 ─ and it has extent-based storage, like XFS.

That said, I still do prefer XFS.  But at the same time, I must add that 
I advise against XFS for systems which are not connected to a UPS (or 
which have a built-in battery, like a laptop).  XFS uses very aggressive 
caching and delayed writes, so a sudden power loss without a UPS to back 
you up could mean the loss of quite a bit of data, and when XFS detects 
a damage which it cannot repair, it will zero out the pertinent blocks 
for security.

That said, I do of course have my systems connected to a UPS. :-)

-- 
= Aragorn =

         http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157

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#13207 — Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?

At Sun, 04 Jan 2015 13:33:48 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> 
> On 04/01/15 12:16, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> > Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> writes:
> >> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised
> >> changes?
> >>
> >> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose
> >> configuration screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
> >
> > Restore from backup.
> >
> The question is pretty carzy to start with.
> 
> Packages -  unless they mess with the kernel/drivers - don't stop the 
> thing booting.
> 
> Most driver cockups will allow booting in terminal mode and blacklisting 
> or de-installing of the offending driver anyway.
> 
> New kernels don't *have* to be booted either. The grub gives options to 
> revert to earlier ones.
> 
> Only time I restore, is during a complete distro upgrade: and then o#nly 
> as a guide to enabling the new distro

Right. Most 'home users' (read: non-developers, non-Linux-Guru users), will be
using a 'modern' Linux distro with a 'smart' package manager (eg Ubuntu with
the GUI package manager tool). These smart package manager tools are not
generally going to do something to 'break' the system (make it unbootable).
The people managing the repositories follow careful QA procedures to avoid
breaking things. And yes, the package managers always keep 2-4 kernels
on-line, just in case and always provide a grub option for 'single user' or
'safe' mode startup to allow for fixing things (eg blacklisting or
de-installing of the offending driver, etc.). 

The most common case where things 'break' is when a developer or guru is
testing a bleeding edge kernel or kernel module or building / installing /
testing bleeding edge packages. Presumably, said developer or guru knows what
they are doing and has taken proper precautions (eg backups, testing on a
scratch disk / partition, testing with a VM, etc.) and knows how to recover
from crashes.

> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
  

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#13219 — Re: How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?

On 2015-01-04, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Sun, 04 Jan 2015 13:33:48 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> 
>> On 04/01/15 12:16, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> > Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> writes:
>> >> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised
>> >> changes?
>> >>
>> >> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose
>> >> configuration screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
>> >
>> > Restore from backup.
>> >
>> The question is pretty carzy to start with.
>> 
>> Packages -  unless they mess with the kernel/drivers - don't stop the 
>> thing booting.
>> 
>> Most driver cockups will allow booting in terminal mode and blacklisting 
>> or de-installing of the offending driver anyway.
>> 
>> New kernels don't *have* to be booted either. The grub gives options to 
>> revert to earlier ones.
>> 
>> Only time I restore, is during a complete distro upgrade: and then o#nly 
>> as a guide to enabling the new distro
>
> Right. Most 'home users' (read: non-developers, non-Linux-Guru users), will be
> using a 'modern' Linux distro with a 'smart' package manager (eg Ubuntu with
> the GUI package manager tool). These smart package manager tools are not
> generally going to do something to 'break' the system (make it unbootable).
> The people managing the repositories follow careful QA procedures to avoid
> breaking things. And yes, the package managers always keep 2-4 kernels
> on-line, just in case and always provide a grub option for 'single user' or
> 'safe' mode startup to allow for fixing things (eg blacklisting or
> de-installing of the offending driver, etc.). 
>
> The most common case where things 'break' is when a developer or guru is
> testing a bleeding edge kernel or kernel module or building / installing /
> testing bleeding edge packages. Presumably, said developer or guru knows what
> they are doing and has taken proper precautions (eg backups, testing on a
> scratch disk / partition, testing with a VM, etc.) and knows how to recover
> from crashes.

Just to take the other side-- a collegue got his system into an
unbootable state with Mageia 4, which uses systemd. He installed Mga4,
and about a week afterwards one of his disks crapped out. It was an
non-essential disk (Ie no / or /usr or /var.... on it) but systemd froze
the system, because systemd DEMANDS that there be no errors from mount
when it mounts the filesystems, and systemd had a bug where it did not
drip into rescue shell when that happened (Not a combination likely to
have been tested). This was not a kernel problem so the old kernels
could not help. He finally had to download a live CD to be able to edit
the fstab. Note that this on a server, which had 80 students relying on
it to complete an end of term assignment 3 days before the due date. Not
nice. 


>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>

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#13287

Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> writes:
>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised
>> changes?
>>
>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose
>> configuration screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
>
>Restore from backup.

I think in the early days of experimenting with an alien OS it's pretty
unlikely I'd know what to backup or have the right backups to hand. 

(Of course I accept that I'm also unlikely to have a multi-system setup in
those early days.)

-- 
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to newsreplyaaa@wingsandbeaks.org.uk replacing "aaa" by "284".  

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#13292

At Mon, 5 Jan 2015 18:43:11 +0000 Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> wrote:

> 
> Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> >Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> writes:
> >> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised
> >> changes?
> >>
> >> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose
> >> configuration screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
> >
> >Restore from backup.
> 
> I think in the early days of experimenting with an alien OS it's pretty
> unlikely I'd know what to backup or have the right backups to hand. 

Backup everything.

> 
> (Of course I accept that I'm also unlikely to have a multi-system setup in
> those early days.)
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
                                                      

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#13295

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
writes:
> Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk> writes:
>>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised
>>> changes?
>>>
>>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose
>>> configuration screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
>>
>>Restore from backup.
>
> I think in the early days of experimenting with an alien OS it's pretty
> unlikely I'd know what to backup or have the right backups to hand. 

Backup everything, then incrementally remove things as you convince
yourself you can live without them (cache files, etc).

-- 
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#13236

On Sat, 3 Jan 2015 22:11:23 +0000
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
wrote:

> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised
> changes?
> 
> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose
> configuration screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?

If you are thinking about moving from XP to Linux, I would recommend
Linux Mint KDE, it is the most configurable using the GUI.

I have been using Linux Mint for just over a year, and for the first
few months I was reinstalling it constantly because I was poking around
trying to figure out what everything was and how it worked.

I had made up my mind I was going to learn to use Linux Mint, and I was
not going back to Windows 7.

The first thing I did was to create two partitions on my hard drive,
and install Linux Mint KDE on both, and set them up exactly the same.
I knew if I screwed up one, the other would still be usable.

If you have Intel Graphics you won't have any problem, If you have
Nvidia, you might have a problem and have to install in compatibility
mode, and then install the right driver.

I can say updates have never caused a problem, I always caused the
problem, and it was usually in my home directory.

Then a nice guy, Kirk_Von_Rockstein, showed me how to use rsync to
backup my home directory, and that ended most of my problems.

I think I should pass that information along to people moving from XP
to Linux.

This is how it's done, except replace my user name with yours:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/backups

sudo -av /home/johnny /usr/local/backups

Then when you want to restore:

rsync -av --delete /usr/local/backups/johnny/ /home/johnny

When you want to backup, which should be done often:

rsync -av --delete /home/johnny/ /usr/local/backups/johnny

If Linux Mint becomes unusable, and you can't get to the Terminal, just
hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 and you will get a virtual Terminal, that will allow
you to use rsync to restore your home directory.

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#13240

On Sun, 4 Jan 2015 17:18:23 -0600
Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> wrote:

> Then a nice guy, Kirk_Von_Rockstein, showed me how to use rsync to
> backup my home directory, and that ended most of my problems.
> 
> I think I should pass that information along to people moving from XP
> to Linux.
> 
> This is how it's done, except replace my user name with yours:
> 
> sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/backups
> 
> sudo -av /home/johnny /usr/local/backups


Well, I screwed that up.  The second sudo command should be:

sudo rsync -av /home/johnny /usr/local/backups

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#13242

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
writes:

> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?
>
> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose configuration
> screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?

I keep /home on a separate physical drive.

I backup /home but nothing else.
If something was to go wrong with the install,
I'd re-install the OS.

I figure it doesn't take much longer to install
than to restore a backup.

Last time I had to do an OS install?
New motherboard left the system unbootable.
A backup would not have helped.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#13243

On 01/04/2015 03:57 PM, Dan Espen wrote:
> Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
> writes:
>
>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?
>>
>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose configuration
>> screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
>
> I keep /home on a separate physical drive.

	Hardly practicable on a notebook.
>
> I backup /home but nothing else.
> If something was to go wrong with the install,
> I'd re-install the OS.
>
> I figure it doesn't take much longer to install
> than to restore a backup.
>
	Hours of downloading updates.

> Last time I had to do an OS install?
> New motherboard left the system unbootable.
> A backup would not have helped.
>

	I think it is best on a machine with only a single hard
drive on board to back up the / et al after an update and /home
whenever you have a significant addition.
	But I often am satisfied to copy off files to my data
partitions as I add them to /Downloads.

	I am not saying I do this but that it is easily done
and should be done.

	bliss

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#13245

Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> writes:

> On 01/04/2015 03:57 PM, Dan Espen wrote:
>> Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
>> writes:
>>
>>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?
>>>
>>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose configuration
>>> screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
>>
>> I keep /home on a separate physical drive.
>
> 	Hardly practicable on a notebook.

Right.
A separate partition can be used instead I suppose.

>> I backup /home but nothing else.
>> If something was to go wrong with the install,
>> I'd re-install the OS.
>>
>> I figure it doesn't take much longer to install
>> than to restore a backup.
>>
> 	Hours of downloading updates.

Not hours for me (FIOS Quantum).

Otherwise, start in the evening, done in the morning.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#13246

On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> On 01/04/2015 03:57 PM, Dan Espen wrote:
>> Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
>> writes:
>>
>>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?
>>>
>>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose configuration
>>> screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
>>
>> I keep /home on a separate physical drive.
>
> 	Hardly practicable on a notebook.

AGreed, but put it onto a sepate partition. 
I have three partitions
/ which contains the OS-- / /usr/{bin,lib,share} /var /tmp /boot
About 15-20GB

and /local which contains home usrlocal with links from /home and
/usr/local to those. 
a third partion (2GB or greater than your physical ram so you can
hibernate) for swap 

If you have a large drive make another 20GB parition so that whenyou
upgrade, you can put the upgrade on that second partition, keeping the
first just in case. (and for those configurations you forgot about)

Then use an external drive for REGULAR backups especially of the /local
partition (eg rsnapshot) 


>>
>> I backup /home but nothing else.
>> If something was to go wrong with the install,
>> I'd re-install the OS.

/usr/local /var/spool /etc are all worth backing up as well. (/usr/local
for all the extra stuff you installed, /var/spool for for example mail,
postfix, .... and /etc/for all that configured stuff you always forget
about (eg wpa_supplicant for all those wireless sites you set up)


>>
>> I figure it doesn't take much longer to install
>> than to restore a backup.
>>
> 	Hours of downloading updates.
>
>> Last time I had to do an OS install?
>> New motherboard left the system unbootable.
>> A backup would not have helped.
>>
>
> 	I think it is best on a machine with only a single hard
> drive on board to back up the / et al after an update and /home
> whenever you have a significant addition.
> 	But I often am satisfied to copy off files to my data
> partitions as I add them to /Downloads.
>
> 	I am not saying I do this but that it is easily done
> and should be done.
>
> 	bliss

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#13252

William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> writes:

> On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>> On 01/04/2015 03:57 PM, Dan Espen wrote:
>>> Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
>>> writes:
>>>
>>>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?
>>>>
>>>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose configuration
>>>> screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
...
>>> I backup /home but nothing else.
>>> If something was to go wrong with the install,
>>> I'd re-install the OS.
>
> /usr/local /var/spool /etc are all worth backing up as well. (/usr/local
> for all the extra stuff you installed, /var/spool for for example mail,
> postfix, .... and /etc/for all that configured stuff you always forget
> about (eg wpa_supplicant for all those wireless sites you set up)

For /usr/local:

I keep source packages in /home/x/src.
On a new system you need to rebuild to work with the latest
shared libraries, so I just remake/install any source packages
I'm using.

/var/spool:

?  I'm confused, nothing in there.
All my mail is in ~HOME/Mail.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#13254

On 2015-01-05, Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> wrote:
> William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> writes:
>
>> On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>>> On 01/04/2015 03:57 PM, Dan Espen wrote:
>>>> Jeremy Nicoll - news posts <jn.nntp.scrap007@wingsandbeaks.org.uk>
>>>> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> How do home users of linux protect themselves against ill-advised changes?
>>>>>
>>>>> What I mean is, if they install patches or some package whose configuration
>>>>> screws things up, and they then can't boot - what then?
> ...
>>>> I backup /home but nothing else.
>>>> If something was to go wrong with the install,
>>>> I'd re-install the OS.
>>
>> /usr/local /var/spool /etc are all worth backing up as well. (/usr/local
>> for all the extra stuff you installed, /var/spool for for example mail,
>> postfix, .... and /etc/for all that configured stuff you always forget
>> about (eg wpa_supplicant for all those wireless sites you set up)
>
> For /usr/local:
>
> I keep source packages in /home/x/src.
> On a new system you need to rebuild to work with the latest
> shared libraries, so I just remake/install any source packages
> I'm using.

Fine. Different strokes.... I have things like Maple, supermongo, etc
installed on /usr/local. They are binary packages which use pretty
minimal stuff that is going to change. I have mail in /var/spool, and
cron files there and at files, and postfix spool, and fax spool, etc.
You may organize your life differently.

>
> /var/spool:
>
> ?  I'm confused, nothing in there.
> All my mail is in ~HOME/Mail.
>

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#13249

On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> On 01/04/2015 03:57 PM, Dan Espen wrote:
>>
>> I keep /home on a separate physical drive.
>
> 	Hardly practicable on a notebook.

You can always back up your /home to a physical or network drive.
It shouldn't be a world-ender if you lose a day or two of data on /home;
either that, or you just need to not care about /home.

>> I figure it doesn't take much longer to install
>> than to restore a backup.
>
> 	Hours of downloading updates.

If it's that important then have the updates pre-downloaded.

--keith

-- 
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
see X- headers for PGP signature information

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#13276

On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:

> 	Hardly practicable on a notebook.


Why?  My eee netbook has a 260G hdd.  My primary Linux desktop only
has a 60G hdd.  

nb

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#13298

On 01/05/2015 08:02 AM, notbob wrote:
> On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>
>> 	Hardly practicable on a notebook.
>
>
> Why?  My eee netbook has a 260G hdd.  My primary Linux desktop only
> has a 60G hdd.
>
> nb
>
	Well there is no room for a second hard drive in my notebook
though my old Inspiron 4000 with the 700 Megahertz "Coppermine" had
that amenity.  Usually notebook with second hard drives are much
more expensive and considerably heavier than the regular models.
	My present arrangement is a 769 Gigabyte hard drive with half
devoted to a useless Windows install from the factory and without
install disks.  15 GiB for root, et al and 75 GiB home with a large
swap partition,  I set up an off the computer archive file but when
I boot without the extra 500 GiB drive the system works fine,
	I am slowly getting ready to do a full backup and restore
of the Windows partition.  Reduce the MS partition and create new Linux
partitions, but I have to read more about making these unfriendly
systems work together so that I can boot to either for the sake
of my sanity.  Failure of even undesirable part of the whole system
drive me right up the wall., but more slowly when MS product is the
failing part.  If i cannot restore a functional Windumb partition I
might rejoice as after I lost Windumb on my last notebook I did not
mind at all

	bliss

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#13312

On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:

> 	My present arrangement is a 769 Gigabyte hard drive with half
> devoted to a useless Windows install from the factory and without
> install disks.

Let me guess: half is devoted to Windoze because it places its
master file table smack in the middle of the disk so you can't
shrink the partition any smaller.  Download the demo version of
PerfectDisk; it can move the MFT.  Lather, rinse, repeat until
you've chased Windows into an insignificant corner of your disk.
The laptop I'm posting this from has a 250GB hard drive; the Win7
installation it came with only takes up 45GB now.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

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#13313

On 01/05/2015 08:08 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2015-01-05, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>
>> 	My present arrangement is a 769 Gigabyte hard drive with half
>> devoted to a useless Windows install from the factory and without
>> install disks.
>
> Let me guess: half is devoted to Windoze because it places its
> master file table smack in the middle of the disk so you can't
> shrink the partition any smaller.  Download the demo version of
> PerfectDisk; it can move the MFT.  Lather, rinse, repeat until
> you've chased Windows into an insignificant corner of your disk.
> The laptop I'm posting this from has a 250GB hard drive; the Win7
> installation it came with only takes up 45GB now.

	Of course Charlie you are absolutely accurate.
	I am going to save your remarks for future action as I
have a few problems right now.
	The funny thing is that with the partition manager in
Windows 8.1 I managed to get it down to about 75 Gigabytes and
it was running fine.  But after the initial crash it could only cut
the space in half.  Now it does not boot again so I have to make
further changes and I may end up with nothing but Linux windows.

	Thanks for your reply,

	bliss

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