Text 8234, 63 rader
Skriven 2006-11-30 15:16:24 av Maurice Kinal (1:140/13.1)
   Kommentar till text 8233 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
Ärende: of ethics and hard drives
=================================
Hey WAYNE!

Nov 30 09:48 06, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote to MAURICE KINAL:

 WC> Now Maurice this is the kind of stuff we need a lot more of in here
 WC> don't you think?

Sure.  Trouble is that I got so used to using these types of things on the
commandline that I tend to think everyone must already know them.  My neighbour
often stops me midstream and asks about something I typed in 10 commands prior.
 Thank goodness for .bash_history eh?

 WC> Hey you know when I was setting up Slackware over that cup of 
 WC> coffee this morning it occurred to me there's a "base system"
 WC> option in that package installation menu.

I never knew that.  Last time I checked there was a zipSlack install option
which is roughly the same.  I guess I got used to installing things from the
commandline off a harddrive that I haven't kept in touch with regular CD
installs.  I think the last time I did a standard install was 8.something.  I
recall Debian having a base install on their CDs but I forget the last version
I checked them out as that was many years ago.

 WC> I wonder if it might just be a good idea to zero out the
 WC> hard drive with dd if=dev/zero of=/dev/hda and start all
 WC> over with a bare bones software installation.

Maybe.  Perrsonally if I was sure the drive is okay then I'd say just boot up a
CD install and then fdisk and format from there instead.  No need to dd the
drive unless you really want to.

 WC> Have you any opinions you would care to
 WC> share with me about this idea? 

I am too hardcore to suggest anything.  I gave up on CD installs quite some
time ago and the way I currently do it can be confusing.  Ask my neighbour and
he'll confirm that.

 WC> Tell me what you think.

I think you should have at least two partitions for installing to; one for
something you already feel comfortable with and the second for playing around
on and learning.  That way if you trash the second learning partition you'll
always have the stable one to return to.  Even a second drive would be a great
thing to have to play on.  At the moment that is what I am doing.  

Currently my newest 'install' is on /dev/hdb2 and I am getting to like it so
I'll probably install it to /dev/hda1 and call it my default stable system.  I
still have to test out mplayer on it but the matroxfb looks good and mga_vid
seems to be usable so my guess is that mplayer will work at least as good as my
last build did.  Still haven't resolved the iptables thingy but this isn't my
firewall box so it really isn't urgent that it work.  Also haven't decided if I
want xorg on it yet.  Anyhow the point is that I always have the last stable
system on /dev/hda1 (four partitions for /, /mnt/test-part, /home and
/mnt/archives) and do the same on /dev/hdb except it is far more experimental. 
That gives me three playing partitions on two drives as well as two stable
home's and two archive partitions.  Always have a backup.  :-)

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.2.0
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