Re: Does anyone use ZIP disks to backup/restore their system? How?
Hi,
Thanks for the replies, it's really nice to know how others
deal with the "backup" issue(s).
I'm really hoping to implement a backup strategy that will allow
me to backup/restore my entire linux system. Over the last 10
hours or so, I have been researching "taper" as a means. I checked
out a couple others, but one needed libc5 libraries, and I wasn't
sure if the other would work with multiple volumes.
Taper seems to be quite slick. I did a full backup, which only
spanned 2 volumes, instead of 3 with kbackup. Unfortunately I
can't seem to fit "taper" on my rescue disk. It has library
dependencies (curses? forms?) but allows static building. But
the static binaries become QUITE large.
I tried pruning down my rescue system as small as possible, but
I think I need to start from scratch again. I use "zdisk" which
is also quite slick. It copies a specified kernel (mine!) and an
MSDOS filed filesystem (compressed). The MSDOS file system actually
includes an ext2 filed filesystem (compressed) and syslinux. It was a
little trickly to figure it out, but I did, and am impressed. BUT, I think
my MSDOS filed filesystem is not compressing as small as it
should, because I have changed it REPEATEDLY.
I remember seeing some notes somewhere about this (bootkit?) and
why the /dev/zero is used as the input file when creating a file
to be used as a loop device.
I think it may actually be possible to use zdisk to create a 1
floppy boot/root disk, that will allow a taper restore to happen.
My brain is a little fried after the last 10 hours or so on this
project, but I will be persuing this again in the near future.
I may have to resort to having the "taper" and "bg_restore"
binaries on a seperate floppy.
If I ever get this working, I would be interested to know if
people would benefit from a web page on all of this stuff. I
planned to have a linux on IBM Thinkpad 560 up at some point
anyway, as it's very tricky to get linux on this machine with
no network connectivity and no builtin CD!
John
From: "E.L. Meijer \(Eric\)" <tgakem@sg10.chem.tue.nl>
To: debian <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: Does anyone use ZIP disks to backup/restore their system? How?
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 09:37:07 +0100
On Tue, Nov 02, 1999 at 06:29:45PM -0800, John Miskinis wrote:
> Hi,
[...]
> This leads me to ask if most people just backup their important
> files on linux, and if they lose their system, they reinstall from
> scratch, then restore just their important (user modified) files?
Not even that. I only safeguard my own products (TeX files, fractals,
programs). The rest I have on CD, and the second time I install
something I usually configure things faster. Sometimes it is nice to
try some new settings.
> This is how I always worked on Windows 95. If I had a builtin
> CDROM, and linux was easier to install I might opt for this, but
> on my Thinkpad 560, it took me 4-5 hours to get everything back.
It probably would take me the same amount of time. But then again, it
doesn't happen a lot.
Eric
--
E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl)
Eindhoven Univ. of Technology
Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (SKA)
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