Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto wrote: >>>> [...] what would be the best way to defrag it? >>>> >>> By not defragging it. >>> >>> It's not Windows. Windows boxes needs defragging not because fragmentation >>> is a huge problem in itself, but because windows filesystems are a steaming >>> mess of [EMAIL PROTECTED] that do little right and most things wrong. >>> Defrag treats the >>> symptom, not the cause :-) >>> >> I don't buy into that argument and never did. Every few months I copy the >> whole HD to another one and then back to counter fragmentation (ext3) and >> the system becomes noticeably faster after doing it (speed increase in >> emerge --sync for example.) Maybe it's not fragmentation but rather related >> files being more closely together after I do this. >> > > How exactly do you copy the files? Be careful not to lose some file > property. How about sparse files, for example? > AFAIK, you can make a complete backup of a filesytem with (as root, > running from another system - such as a liveCD) > $ cd /path/to/mountpoint > $ tar -cSv -f /path/to/tarball.tar . > > But I am not sure. > > >
I use cp -av to copy mine. From what I have read it keeps permission, links and everything. I have done it before and it worked fine but that was before udev came along. Also, I do that booted from a CD, either Knoppix or Gentoo CD. I would think that since everything is wiped out in /dev/ when I shutdown, at least that is how it is set anyway, that udev has to recreate all the files in /dev/ during boot up. Of course, I have never checked that to make sure. Dale :-) :-)
