Jerome R. Westrick wrote:
On Sun, 2004-03-14 at 15:58, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) wrote:
I have a system with 2 HDD's, namely a 20Gb and a 7.5Gb HDD.
What I would like to do is copy an exact replica of /home and /etc and all of their contents from the 20Gb to the 7.5Gb.
<snip>
Totally amazed that the best / easiest method is not mentioned: Easiest is a relative term I am afraid Jerome. If there was a GUI giving me a choice of directories to backup enabling me Click on multiple entries and then another window showing me the destination path, with a TAB to specify when I want the backup to happen etc Now THAT would be easy :)
I suggest:
1) Load StoreBackup with Yast. As a relative linux newbie and liking the fact that you came back to the subject some 15 days after I asked it, I installed it. I have to say though that I immediately went looking for the GUI for it. When I didn't find one I saw an entry in /etc and looked at the conf file.
2) Modify it's .conf file to do a backup everynight. I would need to be a linux computer scientist to edit this file!! I can open the file in KWrite using a new root login session but geez, hasn't any developer ever heard of SIMPLE configuration files??
The advantages are as follows:
- StoreBackup uses gzip to compress the files, They are zipped individually so that they are individually accessible. This presents a problem for me as I would then not have a 'ready-to-go' backup as each file would need to be decompressed first, as pinto mentioned.
- StoreBackup saved multiple versions of modified files, accessible via "date" directory. - StoreBackup creates a full directory structure for each run, allowing easy access to the backups. This is good so that I can find things in the backup where they were in the original.
- Storebackup makes links to non modified files so as not to store the same file 2. Links to unmodified files ie configuration files and binaries I have not used as yet but still need to be backed up?
- Storebackup deletes old backups automatically. Good, space conservation is important seeing as there might be other directories I would like to add to the backup.
- Storebackup is configured "logically". i.e:. "Keep 5 daily, 3 end-of-weeks, 3 end-of-months", does exactly what you would expect! Logically as a programmer perhaps, but as an end user looking at the file, I was a little lost.
I can really think of absolutely nothing I would change! It is the best I've ever seen. YOu set it up in an hour, check it for 3 days, and then forget about backups for ever! Forgetting about backups is never a good thing but I could get use to it, provided I had some email notification sent to me each day confirmation it completed successfully. The setup and the fact that the files are compressed or gzipped though is a problem.
Are there not any open source GUI backup programs, that although might not be as advanced as StoreBackup now, will get better with each release.
Jerry. P.S. Do yourself a favor, and just try it. Jerry I tried it but would only give it 4-6/10. Sorry to say but unless it has an X GUI and does not compress backup files, I am not interested. A good backup is one that works and although your suggestion does the backup well, to restore it to a system would require you to unzip a systems files first before using it.
Any other ideas re GUI backup clients? Regards -- The Little Helper ======================================================================== Hylton Conacher - Licenced Windows user Registered Linux user # 229959 at http://counter.li.org Currently using SuSE 9.0 Professional with KDE 3.1 ========================================================================