OT: new PC catch-22

If you are willing to do a little reading DD will copy a whole disk or a partition quite handily, and fairly quickly. Note it is not a smart copy but an image copy, different sectuiry and reliability charastics. If you are more interested is smart copying rsync is appropriate. CLI programs though.

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 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

Yes, it's called "sync" or "umount" depending on why you want to do it.

That (delayed write) feature can also be turned off (using the "sync" mount option) in most instances.

Bye. Jasen

Again, thanks very much. It seems you can spend a huge amount of time going through MAN pages, only to find they are 20 years old and no longer valid. Being able to ask a simple question and get a quick answer is much better. Now I can research these new terms for more info.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:

SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators: Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:

With Linux, you can do *so* much better. For example, rsync will do a similar update copy, but much more efficiently. In particular, it is more efficient over a network (you do backup to a different machine, don't you?), and will only send the differences for large files that are changed. The other smart thing it can do, along with a Linux file system, is support hard links when taking snapshot backups. Use a system like "dirvish" as a wrapper to save reading the manual pages and writing your own scripts, and it is easy to get daily backup snapshots that only use up disk space when a file is added or changed.

And of course, "sync" is run regularly in the background - you only need the command if you want to specifically force a sync (it's typically part of the shutdown sequence, for example). And, being Linux and full of choices, it is possible to mount some or all of your file systems with write-through caching (i.e., writes to disk are done immediately) or with an application having full control (big database server programs often like to have full control).

Much of the twenty year old *nix stuff is still valid - it's just not updated for modern features.

When you are wondering about whether or not Linux has a particular feature, it often helps to ask yourself whether this it is a feature programmers and system administrators are likely to be interested in. Do you think programmers are going to be interested in good, easy backup solutions? Do you think they are going to be interested in reliable disk writes? In that case, you can be pretty confident Linux supports them.

mvh.,

David

On a sunny day (26 Dec 2006 12:48:45 GMT) it happened "David Brown" wrote in :

An importand command (if you do not know hat manual page to read) on an Unix / Linux system is apropos

Just type apropos backup

an other important idea is to use grep as a filter: grml: ~ # apropos backup | grep rsync duplicity (1) - Encrypted backup using rsync algorithm

now type man 1 duplicity

And you see you can encrypt your backups too, this allows you to store using one of those internet services (vaults) for example.

The third command you should know about is locate to find anything, run updatedb from crontab once a day. locate pizza grml: ~ # locate pizza /mnt/hda1/java/jdk1.2.2/demo/jfc/SwingSet/images/ImageClub/food/pizza.gif /mnt/hda7/root/compile/financial/gtk_pizza0.99.6.lsm /mnt/hda7/usr/share/doc/packages/qt/html/designer/figures/pizza1screenshot.png /mnt/hdb1/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/default/smileys/pizza.gif /mnt/hdb1/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/Tux/smileys/pizza.gif /mnt/hdb1/compile/games/multiplayer/xpilot/xpilot-3.3.1/lib/maps/pizza.map /mnt/hdb1/compile/games/snooker/foobillard/!pizzadude.txt /mnt/hdb1/compile/java/jdk1.2.2/demo/jfc/SwingSet/images/ImageClub/food/pizza.gif /root/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/default/smileys/pizza.gif /root/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/Tux/smileys/pizza.gif

The same is true for Windows NT onward (Win2K, WinXP, and Vista).

---Joel

...

user@ops$ crontab -e

/home/user/Server >> / pub/home/user/Log/cron.log

Cheers! Rich

It's called 'sync' - it's not that hard - the OS has a list of all of its buffers and open files; all it does is flush them all.

And most programs, if they weren't written by scriptkiddies, will flush their own buffers during an orderly exit.

Cheers! Rich

Then it appears that they have sold you a piece of junk. If you can't get your money back, report them to the Better Business Bureau and your local Chamber of Commerce.

Good Luck! Rich

Please read what i said; if one boots with a floppy using a given OS, then one can read what is on hard drives provided the HD format is compatible with that OS. Also, one *can* boot from a hard drive; the problem is that one

*CANNOT* boot from a WinXP CD - making it impossible to install.

First of all, if your BIOS can't see drives that are there, you have a hardware problem someplace.

As far as not being able to boot a WinXP CD, unless its an OEM CD for installation on a new computer, I wouldn't expect it to be bootable. Back in the Win95 days, OEM disks were rare and now I think they are practically impossible to come by if you aren't an 'authorized' manufacturer.

As far as I can tell, you don't. OEM disks (for installation on a new system) are no longer available to the general public.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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"There\'s something vewy scwewy going on awound here." -- Elmer Fudd

On a sunny day (Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:03:08 -0800) it happened "Paul Hovnanian P.E." wrote in :

It is possible they only sell you one of thse OEM versions if you bought a PC there, or at least all the parts together for a basic PC (in their PC configurator).

They must have changed recently or maybe WinXP PRO is different. I got the WinXP Home upgrade and even the upgrade let me boot from the CD. Of course I had to put in the Win98 CD for a check before they let me actually install.

There are a couple of bootable CD formats. As I recall Partition Magic used a very old floppy simulator method. I think you may still have a hardware/bios configuration problem. Have you tried the WinXP CD on a system that doesn't have other problems.

...

Well, I can't speak at XP, but about 5 years ago I paid about $200.00 for an "OEM" Windows 2000 Professional, and it has installed just perfectly (well, M$Windoze perfect) on every machine I've had since then, even thrown together systems from Fry's.

Sometimes I wish I'd kept that W95 disk and W98 upgrade - I miss some of the old sounds. )-;

But, I concur: if the BIOS itself can't see the drives, then you have a hardware problem before you even start.

Good Luck! Rich

*** That was the first thing that bothered me, that the BIOS initial screen shows nothing. But the "wierd" thing as the computer goes thru the pre-boot process, a list of all present IDE drives are shown. ** I know about OEM CDs, i have them for Win95, Win98SE and Win2K; i did not look at the WinXP disks (5 sets of three each) my friend had, so cannot say if they are specifically OEM or not. However, he was able to get a computer going a number of months ago (olderMB and CPU) from scratch; he *did* hava a lot of trouble doing it, but he was sucessful. ** So, if one can install an older Windows version, then one could use an XP disk to "upgrade"?

configurator).

Hmm..$170 (US dollars) for a 64 bit English version without the verdammdt Vista is not too bad. Do *NOT* support Vista and bitch like crazy; even file lawsuits; see:

Unfortunately, my friend does not have that luxury; the (slightly older) working computers are constantly in use for business, and the new computers are desperately needed last month.