On 2017-08-31 16:44, Anton Aylward wrote:
On 31/08/17 10:07 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Can you please explain what the difference is, from the software-to-do-it point of view as opposed to the human-philosophical point of view, between a backup and an archive?
A backup can use an archive as a method of doing it. An rpm is not an archive. A tar is. A cpio is. Even if rpm contains an archive.
let's see. If I simply use 'cdrecord' or 'k3b' to package files onto a DVD, so that in due course the DVD was mountable and I could extract those files if I had lost the originals, does that make it an archive or backup?
It is a plain copy of files to the CD. It is a backup.
If I were a commercial photographer then what would i do? if I were a wedding photographer then I'd use the format that makes the DVD mountable, preferable on a Windows or on a MAC device, since that's what my customers had at home.
But I'm not. I use Darktable, which is only available for Linux (and the like), and I might want to _distribute_ my photographs as backgrounds, examples, textures, with the accompany Darktable scripts, all to go in the Darktable specific places.
But they are exactly the same photographs as I'm "backing up' onto DVD sing k3b, using CPIO, whatever?
As far as I can see RPM is just a way of making an archive that unpacks with specifics according to the enclosed metadata. And that might just as well be backing up for later restore.
It's my INTENT that matters.
Whatever. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)