> backup in order to re-instate my old system from tape. I would always backup
> the directories /root and /home, but if I restored say /usr, would I have
> all my old programs again...this is what I would like, but is this correct.
Yeah, unless something went wrong, you'd have the old stuff still there. You'd
at a minimum want to backup /home, /etc, /usr/local and other places where
you'd typically make changes after the system is installed (a reinstall
shouldn't touch /home or anything under /usr/local, but it certainly might
put system defaults into /etc.)
> If any of you are using tape drives...what systems do you use.
I've had a 2gb (not a whole lot for today's standards) 4mm DAT tape for
a few years. During the time I've used it, I've tried a few different
methods. I gave BRU and Arkeia a spin, thought they were pretty good. I
tried Perfect Backup, which is pretty much a look & feel clone of the old
DOS Fastback Plus program (which is what I used to use when I had Windows).
Unfortunately, I couldn't get the d&mn thing to restore, so out it went.
I've pretty much settled on tar and/or dump. Tar is pretty much the easier
of the two, but dump isn't all too difficult either. The one important
thing is that your data should be easily restorable. For most (especially
X-based) backup systems, that means nearly a complete reinstall of the
system plus the backup software, whilst tar/dump/restore can be put on
a rescue floppy.
> I am using tar at the moment...is this the best choice? I can retrieve single
> files this way, but is there alternatives?
Yes, but slowly. It's ok for select directories but if you are trying to
resture a single file you might have to slog through the tape to get to
it. Some of the alternative ones have waysto speed this process up: they
can put index files on the tape, for instance. restore (the companion
to dump) has a neat interactive shell where you can see what's on the
tape, change directories, etc.
> The tape unit size is 14Gig, but this is with compression of 2:1, how do I
> get this compression, do I have to tar -zcvf for example. Is this a bad idea
> though?
The drive might have a jumper you can set to enable compression - at least
IIRC there's one on my HP DAT. But I would advise against compressing the
whole stream, since a bit error in the middle can make the rest unusable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Fox Thanks for letting me
[EMAIL PROTECTED] change magnetic patterns
[EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk.
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