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On 16/11/19 14:50, Julian Hall wrote: > On 14/11/2019 15:32, mr meowski wrote: >> On 14/11/2019 12:03, Julian Hall wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> Thanks for the advice thus far, unfortunately the situation has marched >>> smartly down the loo since I last posted. I found a website called Easy >>> Linux Tips Project with advice on cleaning up a Linux system, but in >>> attempting to follow that advice I discovered that / actually had /zero/ >>> bytes, not the 8Gb which initially seemed available. At that point >>> nothing would work so I decided to recover from my rsync backup, which >>> seemed straightforward enough as I found instructions for that online. >>> >>> * Boot with Mint Live disk >>> * lsblk to check devices for source (USB drive) and destination (HD); >>> source; source /dev/sdc, destination /dev/sda >>> * create mount points; /mnt/usb and /mnt/system >>> * mount both; mount /dev/sdc /mntusb and mount /dev/sda /mnt/system >>> * Restore: rsync -aAXv --delete --exclude="lost+found" /mnt/usb >>> /mnt/system >>> >>> That ran into permissions problems with error 13. I've tried creating >>> the exact same user and giving that admin permissions and then doing the >>> above, with the same result. It now occurs to me the backup was created >>> with 'su -' so I wonder if I should try to replicate the same root user >>> and try with that? >>> >>> This morning grub died just to add to the fun, so I ran my Boot Repair >>> disk, which is how I am now able to write this email. >>> >>> On the plus side the problem is now simple; get past the permissions >>> issue and the system /should/ restore from the backup. >> >> Oh man, you are going to have some "fun" sorting this out. I have a >> feeling you're going to run into so many complications and unexpected >> problems you'll end up just reinstalling and copying back in the user >> files you need in the end... and it will almost definitely be quicker >> and cleaner than learning to sysadmin 101. >> >> Still, no reason not to give it a go I guess! First are you sure you >> don't want to find and fix the actual problem? You should at least >> diagnose the initial issue properly even if you can't fix it and have to >> restore from backup. >> >> Speaking of which I bet you wish you'd practised backup/restore >> properly. Be careful with rsync - you really need to understand what >> it's doing and what all those options mean. If you accidentally reverse >> your source and destination arguments you are in serious trouble. Run >> rsync with the --dry-run option initially to see what it's going to do. >> Be extremely careful with trailing slashes in filepaths as well. >> >> Can I just check how far you've got with this rsync business and did you >> actually start overwriting your laptop's disk? If so you've kind of >> committed now. What exact rsync command did you use and did you save any >> of it's output or the error? >> >> >> > Short version, reformatted partition - I have an 256Gb SSD (/dev/sda) on > which Mint is installed and nothing else; /home, and Windows 7 are on a > 1Tb HD (/dev/sdb) so home is always safe from reformatting Mint. I have > now /twice/ reinstalled Mint 19.0 from the original DVD iso download, but > when I load Mint 19 it /still/ won't load X. systemctl --failed shows no > modules having failed to load. I'm completely baffled and now wondering > if something in /home is corrupted and stopping X loading, as that's the > only component to survive the format. Is that possible? > > Julian > > PS I finally did get rsync to work but as per my reply to Simon problems > with GRUB cascaded so I gave that up. > > It would be unusual, but certainly not unknown that your local window-manager config has upset X. Theoretically the X server should start (I assume we're not talking about Wayland here, yet...) regardless, and prompt you for login .. unless you've got autologin set ... Create a new user, see if that works OK - if so, then the problem is in your home folder in some hidden (dot-prefix) folder. That would be somewhat annoying if you'd reinstalled the distro, and the problem was in /home all along .. been there, not done that -yet- ... This is definitely where you need some knowledge of what's going on 'under the hood' to diagnose where the fault lies, in order to apply the correct remedy. Good luck, nonetheless... MJE
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