Re: [LUG] Return to Linux

Thank you for your warm welcomes.

"Ubuntu Mate is as good a place to start as any, for a second option I'd
recommend going with Arch Linux or a derivative"

I prefer Debian, it's just more sane than the other distribution flavours, I've been using it since Fedora lost the plot with Core 5 & 6.

Two raspberry pi servers I have are set and forget, SSH'd into occasionally to do updates.

"As for your extremely sensible question about backup/restore of your
bare metal testing instance you unfortunately have the usual entire
plethora of *nix options to choose from - there are so many ways to do
this. I'm going to ignore user-level tools such as rsync and it's many
front ends/wrappers, professional backup apps and a whole bunch of other
options and concentrate on the two that might actually help in your case
- one "online" and one "offline""

When I wrote this topic's original email I was planning to run a backup strategy from the same computer, perhaps using a rescue disc of sorts to repair it, and saving snapshot images to the spare HDD's.
Since your comments I have begun to start liking the idea of a offline backup.

Sitting to my left is a Game server (old Q6600). I'm no longer hosting games from it so I am thinking perhaps using it as a backup server.

Now, my knowledge isn't as great as I'd sometimes proclaim it to be, so what are your thoughts on PXE?
Would it be simple enough to run a script using dd to create an ISO image of SSD - then shove it through my LAN to the PC on my left to hold onto, then using a PXE boot to recover from said ISO.

Have I got this completely wrong, is there a much better (ready made) solution to this? Please bear in mind I'm not the sharpest tool in the box.

I'm just looking for something simple, power consumption isn't a concern, I would just like something quick and reliable for when I think, "Ohh - i'll just try this how--to-guide" and click something to back up quickly. Then proceed with the guide.
(because i'll get to the end of the guide and something is likely to go wrong because I didn't understand something correctly/completely).

Would you mind providing some further suggestions on such a back up method?

ave yourself a LOT of hassle by versioning important parts of your
filesystem (which is arguably all of it - another reason to have a
snapshotting COW system of course) but at minimum just install etckeeper
(sudo apt install etckeeper) which will save you when a badly behaved
package upgrade *doesn't* backup your original /etc configuration files
before replacing them with the new defaults. It's just generally a good
idea to version /etc anyway especially if you're doing heavy configuration.

When you say "versioning important parts of your filesystem", I interpret that as partitioning the hard disc for /home /var /etc /opt

My current Ubuntu mint install just gobbles up the whole disc, I didn't bother to create a separate /home as all my data is stored away from this computer anyway.

Please feel free to re-educate me, and please be specific if you can.
Â

Many Thanks

On 9 January 2017 at 17:26, Eion MacDonald via list <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 09/01/2017 09:15, Daniel Robinson via list wrote:
> Hello folks,
>
> I've returned to using Linux as my desktop OS after a few years away.
> I'm using Ubuntu mate for simplicity (minimal).
>
> # Could you advise on a system backup solution?
> I would like to be able to take a snapshot of my system and then when i
> inevitably break it I can quickly and easily restore it.
>
> My system drive is currently 120GB SSD, and I have 2x 1TB HDD for backup's,
> Private data is stored on another device.
>
> _
>
> I often follow guides online to find solutions to problems. quite often
> the guides don't fix my issue. I end up changing settings and running
> apt-get install a lot and my system soon fills up with a great deal of
> stuff that my system doesn't require and often things will break.
>
> # How do you keep track of applications and requisites that are
> installed on your system via apt-get?
>
> Is there a line of commands that can undo all of these without reverting
> to a system backup.
>
> _
>
> Ports 135 - 139
>
> I've noticed that although these ports are closed, they're not stealthed.
>
> # Should i be concerned?
>
> Many thanks
>
>

20160109 1020
I rarely back up my OS system. I do back up my data (docs , email etc)
and by that i mean multiple back ups on different hardware.
I find an overwrite of my Linux systems by a reinstall is easier.
This is not true of my multi-boot systems with a Windows base.
I back these up totally as an image using Paragon software (used for
many years , since disasters of Win 95 etc) as well as separate docs
back ups
--
regards
Eion MacDonald

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