User Error
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: User Error
started by: mikshaw
Posted by mikshaw on July 22 2005,15:15
This isn't really a bug report, since it was my own stupid fault, but I wouldn't be disappointed if we looked into a failsafe for something like this...I was messing around with persistent home and opt, and ended up losing everything i had that was related to DSL, apart from the extensions I'd downloaded from the repository....all my scripts and works-in-progress are deleted. Using the home=hda3 boot option worked fine for me, as expected, but while playing around with ways to make persistent opt more convenient (so it won't be mixed in with the opt in my other systems), i did a stupid, stupid thing. I put my persistent opt inside my persistent home, and tried the boot option opt=hda3/home/dsl (similar to the mydsl subdirectory option). I didn't really expect it to work, but assumed perhaps it would fall back on the default opt, or use no opt at all. But i didn't expect it to delete everything in /home/dsl.
What really stinks is that I had already been using a working, separate persistent /opt via some bootlocal.sh script rather than the boot options...I just wanted to make it a tiny bit more convenient, since from the other operating systems it was buried inside other directories and it needed to load a new bootlocal at boot time (not a big deal, but i'm striving for something that is a mix of frugal and hd install).
So, I have to start over, rebuilding everything I've been working on for the last few months.
ALWAYS back up your files, particularly if you like to fool around with things you don't completely understand.
Posted by adraker on July 23 2005,07:52
Sorry to hear that Mikshaw....I wonder what happened?
Thanks for posting a thing
"not to do".
Posted by mikshaw on July 23 2005,14:10
Haven't looked into it yet to see how it was deleted, but this in a nutshell is what i did to cause it.directory structure: hda3/home/dsl/opt
boot options: home=hda3 opt=hda3/home/dsl
I have since switched to home=hda1 opt=hda1
hda1 is my Slackware system, which currently has only 3 files in /opt so it won't be too messy.
Posted by adssse on July 23 2005,20:20
Sorry to hear about that mikshaw, but thanks for warning the rest of us.
Posted by mikshaw on July 26 2005,15:16
boy do i feel dumb....I did it AGAIN.
The problem was apparently not in trying a subdirectory for persistent /opt. It seems to be that I have too many versions of too many files. I accidentally copied the wrong bootlocal.sh into /opt, and it was trying to set up a persistent subdirectory when that directory no longer exists.
At least now I know where the problem is (/me points to his brain)...it's just kind of annoying that I've been re-downloading a bunch of stuff that I have to re-re-download. I'm dumping this persistent /opt thingy (not that it's a bad idea, but it's one less thing for me to screw up
)
Posted by adraker on July 26 2005,16:51
Oh you Virtual Canadians.....(Draker says nothing, knowing full well
that he is often in the same boat)
Posted by ke4nt1 on July 26 2005,18:26
When testing a new version of DSL, and using the persistant /opt and /home options,
I often rename my existing directories /oldhome and /oldopt.
( or 1.xhome and 1.xopt )
When you bootup DSL with the home= and opt= boottime options,
new /home and /opt dirs are made upon first time running.
Then I selectively copy over things I want to keep or add,
from the /old* versions, to the /* versions...
It also helps me to see any changes in the new release,
( by A/B'ing them in the emelfm windowpanes )
that effect the operations in either of these two dirs.
( Like new default menus, changes to .xinitrc, etc.. )
Also, watch for things you might keep in your backup,
that will overwrite all of this at the last minute..
Once I have things working to my liking, I'll make a backup
that contains the entire contents of /home and /opt.
Then I'll rename it, and store it away for a 'disaster day',
and make a new backup that does not contain any
/home/ or /opt/ information in it.
The stored backup is real handy to use in case you want to
loadup from a liveCD, but need your "tools" and files from
your persistant install.. Wherever you have it installed,
rename it back to backup.tar.gz, and point to it at LiveCD
boottime with the restore= command.
73
ke4nt
Posted by mikshaw on July 27 2005,03:19
Yeah...that's a good thing to do. My backups usually consist of waiting until i have close to 700mb of data and then burning it to a CD. This happens very infrequently with a tiny distro like DSL.Although rebuilding and reconfiguring a bunch of unfinished extensions twice isn't my idea of fun, I don't mind starting fresh with personal configs. It's particularly useful as a reminder of what should be done and what could be done when booting up a fresh new system...things that you do only once and then forget about until 2 years later when you decide to try a new distro or install clean. It's all been more of a learning experience than anything else from the beginning (productivity? whazzat?), and destroying my configs twice in one week is just another part of that learning.