Which program will do a backup and restore? [Solved]

[paul]

Hello mimosa,
That's useful information, thank you. Your advice will be taken to heart and will be followed.
The program involved was the browser Opera, and you are right, I innocently allowed the program to upgrade itself, with the previously reported consequences.
The thing is that I have been involved with CP/M, then MSDOS, and later Windows from 3.1 on. And I am often flabbergasted by the fact that new users have no insight into what I consider very basic and simple approaches. When one has been involved in a particular area for many years it is often easy to forget that people are not born with an instinctive knowledge of these "simple" things; they must be taught.
I myself am new to Linux, and often wonder whether these bits of simple but essential information should not show up on a help screen that automatically pops up in a given utility on startup.
I have heard the argument that one should read the manual first, quite often.
On that basis I challenge anyone without an IT degree to read a manual of a new operating system from cover to cover before installation, and even if they are hardy enough to do so, then make sense of it without hands-on experience. Paul.

[knome]

The program in question locked up the computer during an update, and when I could not activate any other aspect of Salix, I waited patiently for about 10 minutes. When nothing changed (even the screen saver did not show when it should have) I decided to manually reboot the computer.

There are other options rather than "manually rebooting" which is not advisable in Linux. Here is some good information which includes details of the useful "Magic SysRq REISUB" key combination...

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/bl ... -on-linux/

[mimosa]

@Paul

I sympathise and we have all been there. Windows teaches a lot of habits that are very counterproductive in almost any other environment, precisely to help users accept there is no alternative but Windows. Unix is harder work at first anyway, for intrinsic reasons: a degree of self-reliance is part of the culture, but still can't be conjured out of thin air just by wishing for it. But it is even harder to the extent that one has to unlearn (possibly ingrained ) incompatible habits that were not acquired with any encouragement to think for oneself. The reward, hopefully, is twofold: both greater control and awareness, and a productively superior environment.

The reason there isn't a friendly message telling you what to do is because it is *up to you* what to do. Throw away your chains! The community is there to help you help yourself. RTFM can be irritating advice. But it is worth coming back to the documentation repeatedly to absorb as much as seems useful each time.

In my experience over a few years from almost the beginning of my own transition, I have found the Salix community a tremendously helpful place with very little of the snottiness one can sometimes encounter, and a lot of very knowledgeable and communicative people.

I don't use Opera but I believe there is a package for it (that automatic upgrade thing should be turned off by default, as in all such applications, but sometimes those messages come back, silver bullet or no). One of the Opera devs, ruario, liaises with the Salix community, so if you do have trouble, you could PM him. Also try searching the forum.

@knome That's a very helpful link, thanks. Good to see you around again!

[paul]

Hi All, downloaded the "Parted Magic" ISO, burned it to a CD and backed up my Salix hard drive with Clonezilla via the USB port onto a 16GB pen drive; it all worked a treat.
Thank you all for your help.
Paul.

[f.bluedevil]

@knome That's a very helpful link, thanks. Good to see you around again!

Yes, I agree an excellent article and thanks to knome for posting it.

In my experience over a few years from almost the beginning of my own transition, I have found the Salix community a tremendously helpful place with very little of the snottiness one can sometimes encounter, and a lot of very knowledgeable and communicative people.

I have multi-booted for years. I like to see different distro's, different approaches etc. It is one of the fun things about Linux. However, the one thing that remains stable on my machine are the partitions devoted to Salix and for two very specific reasons. One, is the stability, it has never let me down and the second and equally important, is the community. While I am not an active poster, I do visit the forum frequently to see what I can learn and it has been, and continues to be, a rewarding experience. Your observation regarding the knowledge and willingness of people to help (of which you are a great example) is absolutely spot on.

[Akuna]

Powering off a frozen machine usually results in corrupt data and an unbootable system. Thankfully it can usually be fixed with fsck executed from a Live CD.

[ruario]

I don't use Opera but I believe there is a package for it (that automatic upgrade thing should be turned off by default, as in all such applications, but sometimes those messages come back, silver bullet or no). One of the Opera devs, ruario, liaises with the Salix community, so if you do have trouble, you could PM him. Also try searching the forum.

Actually I am not an Opera Dev. I have a QA background and currently serve as the Linux/FreeBSD team leader. Anyway, minor points.

As to autoupdating, Opera for Linux/FreeBSD cannot autoupdate itself. Only the Mac and Windows versions have code for this. On Linux/FreeBSD it simply does not exist. We only use a very small part of the common Opera autoupdate module but all it does is check for updates and inform the user a new version is out, along with a statement to use their system's native update mechanism to get the latest Opera (on Ubuntu that would be apt, on Salix slapt-get.

[ruario]

The program in question locked up the computer during an update, and when I could not activate any other aspect of Salix, I waited patiently for about 10 minutes. When nothing changed (even the screen saver did not show when it should have) I decided to manually reboot the computer. On that and on subsequent attempts to reboot, Salix no longer worked and just stalled each time after attempting to load a few files - all of which failed with errors - with all of the computer indicator lights flashing. I even turned the computer off several times for a time and started it up again, to no avail.
If the program was not at fault, what was it?

No Idea but I fail to see why you think it would be Opera that caused it. Equally likely that Opera locking up was a symptom of another problem, rather than the cause.

[ruario]

On Linux/FreeBSD it simply does not exist. We only use a very small part of the common Opera autoupdate module but all it does is check for updates and inform the user a new version is out, along with a statement to use their system's native update mechanism to get the latest Opera (on Ubuntu that would be apt, on Salix slapt-get).

Anyone who wants can confirm this. Just install an old version of Opera, click on the red Opera menu, then 'Help -> Check for updates'. You will be informed there is a new version but it will not be downloaded. All you get is the message.

[laplume]

Anyone who wants can confirm this. Just install an old version of Opera, click on the red Opera menu, then 'Help -> Check for updates'. You will be informed there is a new version but it will not be downloaded. All you get is the message.

Confirmed. Works as you say.

Regards,
Antonio