Todd Walton wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 2:15 AM, Akshay Lamba <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> That's interesting. I guess you always have the option of installing the
>>  server iso and apt-get the KDE packages.
> 
> No, they've released a new version of Kubuntu.  But they are not going
> to support it for long term (LTS) like they will Ubuntu.  They said
> the reason was because KDE 4 is just out and not stable yet.

Sounds reasonable to me really. Too hard to support something for 3 years when 
it's :
a) still shiny and relatively unstable (read as codebase is still moving 
rapidly as apps get ported)
b) not core-business.. remember, Ubuntu core business is the gnome distribution.

I'm gonna have a crack at upgrading this 6.06 LTS machine (with loads of 
backported packages and 
other hackery) to 8.04 in the next day or so. It'll be interesting to see if it 
breaks.

On the subject of this machine, the hard disk decided to give up the ghost. 
It's a 1.8" 4200RPM 60GB 
drive, so not an off the shelf item by any means. I had backed up the machine 
at 8pm the previous 
night, and the drive just went off into click-click land at 2pm the following 
day.

I suspected it was starting to look flaky so I'd ordered a replacement drive 
from the US 3 day Fedex 
express and run regular backups.

I really needed the e-mail I'd collected since the last backup though.. what to 
do..
I've used the old freezer trick before.. take the drive out, whack it in the 
freezer and chill it 
down before trying to read data off it.. but in this case it was not looking 
good as, as soon as the 
drive got above about 3 degrees C it started to flake out again. Putting the 
laptop in the freezer 
was a no-go.

Long story short (yeah yeah) I remembered my iRiver h340 has the same physical 
size drive with the 
same connector, so stripping the iRiver down to bare board I fitted the drive, 
plugged in a USB and 
PSU cable and stuck the whole thing in a "Glad" sandwich bag sealed with 
cellotape. Popped the whole 
lot in the freezer and ran the cables out through the door seal. Chilled it 
down and plugged it in.

Whadda ya know. Keeping the whole drive at -4C enabled me to read the entire 
contents off error free 
and create a gzipped dd image of the drive. New drive arrived at 10am this 
morning and was installed 
and restored in less than 2 hours! We are back on line with no data loss. And 
as a bonus the iRiver 
went back together and worked (I had expected to have damaged it with moisture 
and condensation when 
I removed it from the freezer).

rsync, dd_rescue, dd, nc and gzip are fantastic data recovery tools :)

Brad
-- 
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable
for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams

Reply via email to