[Aptitude-devel] What I'm really missing in aptitude / synaptic

[MNO]

On 8/30/07, Daniel Burrows <dburrows at debian.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 07:09:06AM +0200, MNO <manostienen at gmail.com> was
> heard to say:
> > I really hope that aptitude will have it as an option in it's menu to
> export
> > and import the selections.
> >
> > At least i now learned how to do this with dpkg which is very helpful
> right
> > now.
> >
> > for the config files i'll just save all .conf, .ini etc.
>
>   Saving and loading the selection list might be useful, and I think it
> would be doable without too much trouble.


That would be a great feature to have. And i really hope to see it one day.

> What i try to do is following:
> >
> > Export the selections for a pre configured machines, like this:
> > - HP Vectra 420 Office,
> > - Compaq iPaq internet kiosk
> > - HP EVO File server
>
>   OK, so you're talking about systemwide restores.  I was a little
> worried you wanted to restore user configuration files (~/.*), which
> is quite a bit trickier (unless, again, you blindly back up and
> restore everything).


Yes, well i hope to take it as far as possible. Keeping in mind that an
average user (with basic knowledge) should be able to restore. And i dont
want to bloat valueble diskspace with backups of system files, files that
are always 100% the same as the original installed ones. And with a fresh
install then you also get the newest updates where needed. So only need to
backup the /home dir  and that one sits on the file server for all the
users.

  If you really are recreating /etc entirely, I would recommend taking
> a serious look at just making a tarfile of everything in there, then
> blowing it away after a reinstall and unpacking the archive.


No , i try to avoid this if possible.

> I'm helping someone who is running a low budget Internet cafe in Africa.
> > Harddrive failure is one of the most common issues, and backups are the
> > second issue.
> >
> > So if i can store at least the selections on a web server and have an
> easy
> > way to apply them to a fresh install then i'm half way ready.
>
>   It sounds like you probably don't have much disk space for this -- but
> if you do, you might want to look at partimage.  AIUI it's designed for
> this sort of thing (and will save bandwidth on restores).


True, disk space actually is "risk" space over there, most systems are
running on (very) old hard drives and if one crashes then it gets replaced
by another piece of junk.

Mano.
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