Steve Holdoway wrote:
Christopher Sawtell wrote:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:02, Jason Greenwood wrote:
Ummm, I think using a GUI might be a tad easier for a newbie Chris. =)
2 points.
1) If somebody cannot type 37 characters they shouldn't be anywhere near a 'puter.
2) He can cut and paste my _single_ line into his xterminal or Konsole and press the return key. Job done. He cannot do that with your _5_ lines of complex explanations.
I would backup all of /etc and also all of my Home Directory.
Yes I'd agree with that, so add the /etc as per:- find ~ /etc | cpio --create > /dev/fd0
Hopefully all the files in your /etc are world readable, If not you'll have to be the root user.
Most important stuff is then backed up at that point. You can use a floppy
and drag n drop using Konqueror (graphical file manager) or you can burn
to CD using K3B (Graphical CD/DVD Burner).
What a complex fiddle! He'll need a diploma to do that.
:-)
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Jason
[snip]
Sorry, but I really do disagree. Since when will somebody new to linux - and they can only be coming from Billyland - have a problem dragging and dropping? I'd also use a preformatted floppy, so the user can see their files on the medium, as opposed to hosing any existing filesystem by writing an oarchie to the raw medium.
Er... that should read archive - I'm obviously borrowing these fingers from a friend.
...and personally, IMHO the single actual advantage of cpio over tar ( that it could handle special files properly ) is now no longer true, and the complexity of using the program efficiently ( find . | cpio -ovc | compress -c > /dev/fd0 vs tar cvfz /dev/fd0 . is bad, but using cpio -icvmudlk to get it back... ) makes it a dodo.
Now, if we're talking about automating a regular backup, then of course scripting is the way forward.
(This is a really bad example, as we're going to have to write really small to get /etc on a floppy (: ).
I've spent most of my life behind 80x24 character monitors, where the command line is your favourite deity ( and, to be honest, I do prefer it ), but if it were that good, then why invent a mouse?
My $0.02,
Steve
