Persistent default dirs: home and etc !?!?

[soundcheck]

Hi there.

I am wondering if you could change the default .filetool.lst file

I suggest that it should save the entire

home/ and etc/ by default.

1. currently it is home/tc only.
2. on a persistent system quite some files will be put and edited in etc

According to my (though rather limited) experience, above would be much more convenient.


THX

[Guy]

Do this on your computer, and see if you still think this is a good idea.

The more you put in backup, the longer shutting down and starting up the computer takes.

You don't want to wait a long time, particularly when starting the computer.

[soundcheck]

Wrong answer!

If I e.g. start with "home=X" option, I want my home saved.

It would be much easier if you  put in an "home/" entry.

I can not imagine that someone starts up with a dedicated home and doesn't want his data saved.

So home/ would cover tc and others. There is no space wasted.


etc is a different story. A lot of config files are stored there (alsa,udev,fstab,group,passwd,hosts, you name it)
At least I am not sure which application puts its "volatile" config files in there.

Perhaps it is worth to think of at least some imporant files that go in there. I do agree that putting all of them in
might be a bit of an overkill.

Perhaps the TCE installation process can take care of it, by putting the relevant config files in filetool.lst.

   

[Guy]

If you use home=sda1 and also include it in .filetool.lst, you have two copies, one in the home directory, and one in backup.

Backup will still take longer (depending on what you have in your home folder).

When you use home=sda1, the home folder is saved, even when it is not in backup.

[mikshaw]

I agree with Guy.  I'm using a persistent home and have never used the backup/restore system.  I don't have much use for it.  All the data I would hate to lose is plentiful, and shared with other distros, so for my uses backing up a whole drive periodically is a much better solution.

Perhaps the TCE installation process can take care of it, by putting the relevant config files in filetool.lst.

It could, I suppose.  Personally I don't like the idea, as it means an automated process making assumptions about what you want done to your system.  Installing files into a volatile space is one thing, but having the ability to alter what the user considers permanent is going too far.  I think I've probably said it too many times for some people, but making assumptions like this serves only to please a particular section of users while adding more work and potential troubles for the rest.

It's a much simpler solution for the person want to save everything in /etc to just add that directory to filetool

[jpeters]

I agree with Guy.  I'm using a persistent home and have never used the backup/restore system.  I don't have much use for it.  All the data I would hate to lose is plentiful, and shared with other distros, so for my uses backing up a whole drive periodically is a much better solution.

Yes, and hopefully using several backup scripts for different levels of urgency; I have at least 4, with smaller more important backups going FTP to server after encryption. My $HOME just contains the default hidden files, a few links, and some scripts that don't add much boot time.
(although I have several persistent homes for different user names).

[alu]

soundcheck, i don't know if i understand you right, but if you want it, you can save the entire /etc in your filetool.lst by adding etc into it; i don't do that, but i save some config file for my printer and or my wlan in order not to have to proceed from the begining at each boot

[roberts]

I would not advocate placing etc in the default .filetool.lst for reasons previously discussed.

* You could add individual .conf files to .filetool.lst, as suggested, but that means writing them upon every shutdown.

* You could tarball up many .conf files to make a personal zzmyconfs.tce and place it in your tce directory.

I promote the second option. Why keep writing the .conf (static) files upon every backup. With the second option you write them once and read (load) them upon each boot. Note the funny name zz.. to ensure that the conf collection loads last, after all extensions.

Don't like the zz.. name, then tarball them up to myconf.tgz and add a tar extract command to /opt/bootlocal.sh, this too will load after extension loading thus making your configurations persistent.

There are, of course, many ways to achieve the desired result, including symlinks.

[soundcheck]

OK folks.

THX for the feedback. As far as I can see everybody is doing it slightly different,
which is normal if there is no standard.

For less experienced people (including me) the whole process will for sure be a challenging
exercise.

[roberts]

Of course TC is not a turnkey system. It is all about having choices. Having it your way.
If you are challenged by having choices, there always remains the choice to install the standard traditional hard drive method, where everything is persistent.