[CLUE-Tech] Disaster Recovery (was Linux laptop)

[Brandon N]

I too have been thinking about backups.  Here is what I've been
thinking of so far.  

I only want to back up actual data, which in my case is user
directories, mysql databases and web pages, (and /etc)  I want
everything else to be as close to the initial packages as possible (I
use slackware because it's a easy task to rebuild the packages the way
I want them.  

For the actual OS stuff I think I have two solutions.  I can save a
list of the packages installed on the system, then just restore off of
my distribution (I mirror slackware weekly)  Or I can make a mirror of
the OS partitions.

I have several hotswappable 4.5GB SCSI drives, but I need to aquire a
UW SCSI external case so that I can easily mirror the drives, then all
I have to do is swap it should it fail.  For the laptop that I use as a
router, I don't have a spare hard drive, so I'll probably just have my
desktop machine ready to take over it's functions from the latest
backup.

I'm currently working on writing up my procedures as well as the
function of each machine using XML.  All the doucmentation will be
burned to a CD-RW and stored at my aunts house, along with inventory
and database backups.

It's all probably overkill for a home network, but I figure it is good
practice and good for a job interview.

Disaster recovery is a very complicated issue and I would definatly be
interested in hearing thoughts about mine or other peoples plans.

Brandon


--- Cyberclops <Cyberclops at hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
> I use Libranet on a full sized computer, but I'm interested in the
> same
> thing in a sense.  I want to make a complete backup of my system that
> I
> can use to restore it.  I have a Plextor CD-burner on the machine.
> 
> 
> 
> Roger Frank wrote:
> 
> > Haven't had a laptop since I had a real job.  But I saw one surplus
> > for $100 with 2G drive, 40 MB memory, Ethernet/modem card.  No CD
> ROM,
> > and a 75 MHz 486 for a CPU.  I thought it might be a good time to
> > learn about Linux on laptops.
> >
> > I'm surprised at how well Linux runs on this little NEC Versa M/75.
> > I did a floppy install just to get to where it could use the
> > Ethernet card, and then did the rest of the (Debian) install
> > over the network.  I'm using Blackbox as a window manager
> > and it's quite zippy.  The screen is 800x600 color, but for my
> > needs that's just fine.  I've already done some editing with
> > nedit and I've compiled some Java programs.
> >
> > Now that it works - and it did take some work to get it going -
> > I wish there were a way to do a partition dump thru the serial
> port.
> > I know partimage is excellent, but there is no second drive or
> > second partition.  I'd like to be able to get the exact image of
> > what's on the disk onto another machine as an image, and I'd
> > like to be able to restore it easily.  I guess it's the Linux
> > equivalent of Ghost that I'm looking for.  Any ideas?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Roger Frank
> > _______________________________________________
> > CLUE-Tech mailing list
> > CLUE-Tech at clue.denver.co.us
> > http://clue.denver.co.us/mailman/listinfo/clue-tech
> 
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From: Matthew Porter <matthew at mindspring.com>
To: clue-tech at clue.denver.co.us
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 19:58:42 -0600
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Subject: [CLUE-Tech] I love GNOME, GNOME hates me
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List-Id: CLUE technical discussions, questions and answers. <clue-tech.clue.denver.co.us>

Okay, so maybe GNOME doesn't HATE me, but it's sure making things difficult.

After using GNOME happily for sever weeks, it is now munged up beyond my 
immediate ability to figure it out and fix it.  Can anyone help me sort it 
out, or at least tell me how to completely remove GNOME from my system and 
START OVER so I get a working GNOME desktop again?

Here's the chronology of my tale of woe:

A few months ago I installed Debian on a new hard drive.  (Before that I'd 
use Red Hat 6-point-something on a partition of another drive.)

I installed Debian 2.2 from CD.

Once I got PPP working, I upgraded my packages to the packages in 
debian.org's stable archive.

A week or so later, I wanted a package that exists in the testing archive but 
not the stable archive.  (I think it was the latest RealPlayer installer, but 
that probably doesn't matter.)  So I added the testing library to my 
sources.list file, and used apt-get to install the package.  All was well.

At some point I then upgraded the rest of my packages to the versions in 
debian.org's testing archive.  (So I guess I'm more or less running Woody 
now, right?)

Then, at some point later, I decided I wanted some packages from Ximian.  I 
downloaded Ximian's version of the panel applets.  I liked it. A few days 
later I decided to go ahead and install the whole Ximian GNOME desktop.

(I realize now that that was a Bad Move, since Ximian doesn't work well with 
Debian's Woody/Testing packages.)

Ximian Gnome seemed to work OK, except for a few flaky dependency errors whan 
I tried install new packages.  And in trying to fix those, I seem to have 
messed things up good.

I don't recall all of the details of what I've done recently, but here are 
some of the things I've tried:  I removed Ximian's archive from my 
sources.list file, and did apt-get update. Then, using dselect, I purged all 
of the ximian packages from my system, and then replaced them with Debian 
(testing, I think) packages.

When that didn't work, I used dselect to purge EVERY GNOME PACKAGE I COULD 
FIND on my system.  Then I reinatalled task-gnome-desktop and related GNOME 
packages.

Still it's broken.

Here's my current status:

I can log into a GNOME session.  Windowmaker seems to work OK as a window 
manager, but I don't want to use Windowmaker.  I have icewm-gnome installed, 
but the system doesn't recognize it as a GNOME-compliant window manager.  
Also, I can't configure it and have the configurations saved.

I have also installed sawmill-gnome.  However, I can't configure it, and the 
menu button at the top left of window title bars doesn't work at all.

Can someone help?  I'd like to either fix this, or at least learn how to 
COMPLETELY REMOVE GNOME FROM MY SYSTEM and then re-install so I have a nicely 
workin gGNOME desktop when all is done.

Thanks!

 --Matt.