Re: [LAU] System Restore...

I can see es planing this to a noob! lol

Here's the objective; To make a simple way for a new fledgling to put his /
her system back to how it was, say...yesterday! Before they downloaded a
bunch of updates and broke stuff by bad config changes and what not!

On the particular distro I'm using, it comes as a live cd and it's really a
dead simple task. So easy, even I can't screw it up after 3 or 4 attempts!
:) It has a ~remaster-me~ script as a menu item in KDE. So long as you dont
grow your system beyond the size "squashable" by squashfs (about 4GB down to
750MB IIRC) AND, you remember, AND actually act on that memory to make a new
bootable snapshot of that system, your in fine shape. Even then, you can
make a Live DVD if you have the hardware to do so. It doesnt get too much
simpler than this and yet, there are pitfalls. If your /tmp directory or
swap partition are too small, it falls over. If you partitioned separately
and placed /home on another partition, it wont work at all.

A suggestion made to me from a collegue was to look at a system of
subversion; where any config changes cause the changed files to be copied to
a local repository of sorts and a tracking system that can have
"checkpoints" created so that you could theoretically step back in time to
any point of your changes without wiping and re-installing your entire
system. It's odd with Linux...that the things each user considers difficult,
is directly related to their depth of knowledge. I suppose most things are
like that really but I do know this...when trying to attract fresh blood in
the audio world, it's a daunting thought to try and make them understand
"Oh, you will have to completely re-install 2 or 3 times before you get the
hang of it." :)

Curious what everyone thinks about the subversion concept. It makes some
sense to me, but then I'm an idiot! :)

R

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Restivo" <ken@email-addr-hidden>
To: "Russell Hanaghan" <hanaghan@email-addr-hidden>
Cc: <linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: [LAU] System Restore...

> On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 01:27:49PM -0700, Russell Hanaghan wrote:
>> Hiya!
>>
>> So while Dave warmed up the crowd on the M$ related questions...
>>
>> ...and at the risk of being stoned in the Linux public square, is there
>> *any* form of the System Restore function that follws the model of the
>> ~other~ OS?
>>
>> One of my former direct reports, a wiz kid sys admin in the Bay area all
>> ready gave me the standard smart a$$ response; (Er, yeah! It's called a
>> "RE-INSTALL" ...lemme spall it for yah again!! ha ha ha ha) So after I
>> got
>> up off the floor from gut level laughter.. (NOT!), I continue to believe
>> that for nooby converts, and maintaining it's customization ability via
>> the
>> Linux model, would be a very useful tool!!!
>>
>> I have spent many hours recently setting up a custom audio distro that
>> will
>> be remastered and available as a live CD. I'm no Linux sys admin...I
>> figure
>> stuff out any way I can, take longer than most to get it just how I like
>> it....and then I say..hmm, just one more thing I'd like to change....and
>> I
>> bjork the window manager or some such thing. To re-install at that point
>> kills MANY hours of fruitfull work and I'm old enough that I don't need
>> cliche lessons! :)
>>
>
> I do the following occasionally (not often enough):
> 1) I tar up the /etc directory
> 2) I do a "dpkg -l > status-of-installed-programs.log" to keep track of
> what software I've installed
> 3) I tar up the entire /usr/local directory tree into a separate tar file
> 4) I keep all my important data files in /home/music-projects, and I rsync
> that up to an external USB drive periodically for backups. I also keep any
> code or scripts in CVS and rsync that one up too periodically.
>
> A "system restore" is basically a reinstall from a distro CD. Then I use
> the status-of-installed-programs.log file to grep out a list of installed
> packages ("ii" status), awk to get the name of the packages, and then
> "apt-get install" them. Then I either gradually pick through the backed-up
> files in /etc and copy them over, or just wholesale replace the directory,
> depending on how much of a hurry I'm in. The data of course I've had
> rsync'ed onto a separate drive, so I just copy that one over.
>
> This is a long process, and I've been getting sufficiently paranoid lately
> to have obtained an extra 2.5" PATA drivein an external USB enclosure. I'm
> going to format it and copy over my entire drive so that I have a "hot
> spare". If my drive dies, I can just (hopefully) replace it with the new
> one and off I go.
>
> -ken

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Received on Sat May 3 16:15:02 2008