|  Author | Topic: SalineOS backup (Read 1,783 times) |
ukbrian
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|  | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #45 on Mar 19, 2012, 5:28pm » | |
Quote:| nice to allow an Escape for testing |
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An "Abort" labelled button would be good.
Quote:| As for the installer question, it depends which version of the installer you want to use. The 2.0 installer should install any Debian Squeeze based distribution |
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I'm only thinking of Squeeze but a 64 bit is on the horizon near future.
Quote:| The 1.6 installer will install any Debian Squeeze based distribution, as long as that distribution is using the Debian live scripts .. Mepis and LMDE |
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which installer would you prefer me to test, 1.6 or 2.0,it will be on a Squeeze with a 3 bfs? kernel running more recent apps than in the debian repos.
Quote:| Not all features of the installer will work though, AutoLogin depends on SLiM, restricted codecs need installrestrictedmultimedia, language support depends on localizesys and starting Magix depends on a couple of things to be pre-setup on the system. |
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Sorry, but I really need a list of things I need to install to get remastersys-saline running, I think I want to try with the version I've been using 1.6?.
I made a successful backup/restore of this other system yesterday, I even did a good restore in a different machine and I've installed some more apps in it and tomorrow I might try to move it back, things are moving fast at the moment so I'm pushing myself a bit. I really rate the guy as a person, he's very much like you, ethical, straight talking, honest John is it.
I've started to put a default firefox profile together with the essential addons installed, like I set up my own users, including links to videos showing folk how to do things them selves
Code:I had an email from someone about remastersys or refracta. Can't remember who or what it was.
Something about using my installer. The guy who posted over at Mint forums. I don't mind doing
a bit of work with them but they need to listen a bit more to be totally honest.
Anyone here knows how I work. If I say something needs doing its because it does. When someone
comes along assuming how my software works, when I wrote it, its very difficult to base a relationship
on that. For instance, the fact that live-installer is completely *EOL* now. Completely. It needs rewriting.
And when I repeatedly stated that we used the Debian live scripts, and its totally compatible with any
Debian live image, I don't see why I keep getting asked what live tools it uses.
Long story short: I do not mind helping anyone. Or contributing to other projects or taking on extra
coders. However, I want people to do things off of their own back and do their own research as well,
instead of bombarding me with ludicrous messages on "how does this work" "how does that work", especially
when they come from a good project. It doesn't take five minutes to look on Google or github to see how
something else is working.
Also, insult to injury; being told that the installer is going to get rewritten in BASIC. Ouch.
I see no M$ ties there.. :P
I will actually forward a working version of live-installer, with docs, and a remastersys setup as a demonstration
so nobody has to spoil the project. I just like to see things done properly :) |
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I mentioned the need for a wubi and got this reply which floored me.
Quote:I already am aware that wubi is very possible for SolusOS, but it would have to be a from-scratch
effort. I even have had SolusOS running inside Windows using coLinux.. no virtualisation ..  |
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good he's thinking wubi
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Anthony Nordquist
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #46 on Mar 20, 2012, 8:36am » | |
The simplest way to use my installer on another Debian distro is to:
1. Purge whatever login manager it is using.
2. Add the Remastersys repository to the sources list.
deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository squeeze/
3. Install salineos_utils package, I have uploaded this to git for you under the folder DebianPackages.
4. Copy over installrestrictedmultimedia from a SalineOS install to the other system.
Its more than likely that I will be dividing the SalineOS scripts up into separate packages for 2.0 and actually have a goal to make them litian clean. This will make installing them on other distributions as well as porting them over easier.
As for me, I am working only on the 2.0 installer now. The only work done to the 1.6 installer for 1.7 so far is a patch to remove spaces from the hostname the user types in. As of right now the 2.0 installer doesn't support installing Remastersys backup disks, and may not come release. In fact it very likely won't.
Don't expect a WUBI type program coming from me anytime soon, the only way SalineOS will run in such a way, is if the support is added to upstream Debian proper. I haven't installed Windows on one of my machines in a great number of years, and if I can avoid it forever, I will die happier because of it.
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ukbrian
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #47 on Mar 20, 2012, 9:23am » | |
Quote:1. Purge whatever login manager it is using.
2. Add the Remastersys repository to the sources list.
deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository squeeze/
3. Install salineos_utils package, I have uploaded this to git for you under the folder DebianPackages.
4. Copy over installrestrictedmultimedia from a SalineOS install to the other system.
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Many thanks Anthony
Quote:| Its more than likely that I will be dividing the SalineOS scripts up into separate packages for 2.0 and actually have a goal to make them litian clean. This will make installing them on other distributions as well as porting them over easier. |
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I assume that 2.0 stuff will be compatible with the next Debian stable release. building for the future.
Quote:| I haven't installed Windows on one of my machines in a great number of years, and if I can avoid it forever, I will die happier because of it. |
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I capture the video in with a Hauppage box using the supplied windoz software they bought in at a price and it's the pits.
It falls over if any anti-virus software is running ![[image]](http://lin.me.uk/smilies/rofl-00.gif "[image]") so as I only use windoz for video I don't run any anti-virus at all just do an occasional image backup with macrium of my windoz partition, been doing it for 9 months with no problems, life on the edge I suppose. ![[image]](http://lin.me.uk/smilies/rofl-01.gif "[image]")
Quote:| Don't expect a WUBI type program |
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I pretty sure Ikey will do one after when the times right and that should run on SalineOS
I've just recorded a video of setting up partitions with gparted which is a big step when folk have never got into partitioning before. I've just got to edit the video and add a sound track.
edit
The video I made of installing SalineOS 1.5 has had 44 views so that was worth doing.
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ukbrian
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #48 on Mar 29, 2012, 3:55pm » | |
I like the new version I've used it a few times and you have improved it a lot, well done that man
I'll still complain that the end user is still not allowed by the devs to enter a partition label, it does annoy me because it makes it easier for folk new to gparted and partitioning which I think is a major barrier for those thinking of trying linux to recognize partitions.I will keep on about this because it matters so much, why did the devs of the ext4 put the property in the file system if it's not to be used.![[image]](http://smile.lin.me.uk/rofl-00.gif "[image]") ![[image]](http://smile.lin.me.uk/grrr_Grrr.gif "[image]") ![[image]](http://smile.lin.me.uk/grrr_smiley_aafz.gif "[image]") ![[image]](http://smile.lin.me.uk/grin.png "[image]")
I need a thunar custom action that when i right click on a file name i have an option to copy the full file name as i have to select rename or properties to copy the file name, windows or filezilla 2 slow clicks and you are editing/renaming/copying the file name, much better way.
I am going to start a project either here or solus to do a GUI for clonezilla for the linux community, any one know why one hasn't been done already?
![[image]](http://smile.lin.me.uk/off-topic-00.gif "[image]")
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Anthony Nordquist
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #49 on Apr 6, 2012, 3:32pm » | |
SalineOS backup will now display disk labels, size in MiB and size in GiB in the dialogs. Also, it will preserve labels you set with GParted through the formatting process. This code has also been merged into the SalineOS installer.
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petrek
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #50 on Apr 11, 2012, 2:35pm » | |
I have some crazy pseudo-backup idea. Create a tool with list of all manually installed packages (with option to install the latest versions of them) for easy recreation after new SalineOS install. It would be very handy for testing and also in cases of laziness 
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Skallagrigg |
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Anthony Nordquist
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #51 on Apr 11, 2012, 5:02pm » | |
Actually, I have a script that could be modified for this very purpose already. I think that would fall under a misc action, and belong as an option in SalineOS system utilities.
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ukbrian
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #52 on Apr 14, 2012, 5:56am » | |
+1
Makes me think of a bare bones install so you only add what you want instead o me having to remove libreoffice, rhythmbox etc.
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debby
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #53 on Apr 17, 2012, 3:43pm » | |
I just tried the salineos backup and after 1 hour at really high cpu load it was not even half way done. I manually aborted it and booted to acronis and got both root (2.3gb tib) and home (6.3gb tib) backed up separately in ~28min. To me this is smarter and all I need worry about is making sure my partitions are the same as the backup image thinks they are. I did not back up sda1 with xp simply because it has no internet and I will probably replace it at a later date anyways so it doesn't really matter. The *.backup file was being created correctly as far as I can tell even though the gui ignored the folder I created for the file itself and dumped it at the root of the drive instead. I excluded my 2 separate drives I mount through fstab with the gui. It only made a 4.8gb .backup file after 1 hour  Based upon my acronis backups it may well have been halfway done I don't know. There are no indications at all except for the bar filling up. When I resized the gui it refused to get smaller back to it's default state. maybe you could disable resizing.
Is it possible it would run faster from a boot environment because less than half way after an hour is just way too long. Also; "SalineOS backup will now display disk labels, size in MiB and size in GiB in the dialogs." I saw none of that and I did a git pull beforehand-maybe that comes after you have created a full backup ?. The only options I saw were exclusions, destination directory, and the naming of the *.backup itself. If you close the gui mkssquashfs stays running.
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Anthony Nordquist
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #54 on Apr 18, 2012, 6:58am » | |
The time it takes for SalineOS backup to create an image is entirely dependent on the CPU power it has available. By a very large margin, the most time consuming task is compressing all of the files down. I use the highest possible compression I can for making the backup images (Roughly 30% smaller than the installed system). As USB keys become larger and cheaper, it is becoming more feasible to use them for storing something like a backup image. Using really high compression algorithms will also help this process along, the downside is CPU cycles required to get the job done. SalineOS backup doesn't care about partitions at all, it only sees a collection of files, and creates it's very own file system for them to reside in. This has the benefit of being much more flexible than most backup suites in you can do things such as: Restore the system to a smaller hard disk(This is the important one), move the home partition to a separate partition during restore (Even if it wasn't to begin with) and finally you can mount the .backup file since it is in fact a filesystem (2.x will allow you to do this from the right click menu in Thunar). There is only one thing that can vastly slow down the backup and that is a program modifying files while the backup is running. You must make sure to close all running programs before running the backup. If the bar is still moving, then the process is moving forward, so it would have finished. My only advice is, if it takes too long for you, start the process before bed and wake up to a fresh created backup image
You have to select the directory you want to use, it isn't selected automatically after creation (This is a yad thing, it maybe feasible to patch yad but its low on the priorities list). Mksquashfs does in fact keep running if you close the progress bar, I might be able to work out a way to brutally murder the process, but so far my efforts have been fairly moot.
The disk labels and MiB is in the restoring a backup image code.
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debby
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #55 on Apr 19, 2012, 1:20pm » | |
Cool. With windows and it's primarily one partition schemes, having a backup image that can be put on larger or smaller disks is easy, as like you said, only files are copied and nothing else. With multiple linux partitioning schemes, trying to backup a full hd would be a nightmare and require a TON of space. TG saline is as stable as the day is long. I would probably only do this backup if in fact I were to change h'ds like you mentioned. Sleeping on it would be the way to go regardless.
It is awesome that of all the distros I have looked at how very very few have any backup capabilities at all and none like yours.
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Anthony Nordquist
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #56 on Apr 25, 2012, 7:36pm » | |
A great big commit just hit git for salineos-backup, but you should be warned that the two new options shouldn't be tried just yet. For one, they depend on the existence of /etc/salineos-backup/recovery.backup which has yet to be created (I will leave it to your imagination as to how I am going to create it). For two, I haven't tested the code at all, so it might eat your hamster, insult your mother, ect..
What is in the works is the ability to create a bootable USB restore drive, with a VERY stripped down restore environment. A quick breakdown on how it works, SalineOS backup will format the drive, create an ext4 partition, install a .backup file I will be providing to that partition, install grub to the USB drive's MBR and copy over the selected .backup file to a pre-defined location. For recovery.backup the plan so far is to have everything it includes just sitting on the desktop (Except memtest which will be in the grub menu). The very loose plans for this include, a file manager, Grub Doctor, Start Restoration (Only have to prompt the user for partition(s) to restore to and grub location) and GParted. If you know of another useful item to have included on a recovery environment, now would be a good time to speak up
The next logical step is to add support for creating a recovery partition. I will be working on this in the near future and the recovery.backup file when I get around to it.
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debby
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #57 on Apr 26, 2012, 7:51pm » | |
Being new to linux I can't add much but I would suggest testdisk and a lightweight browser like midori. Anyways, if it's an iso it shouldn't be too hard to add a folder to it. AV scanners are very popular I hear. ClamTK or something.
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Anthony Nordquist
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #58 on Apr 27, 2012, 11:54am » | |
The recovery environment will be a distro in and of itself. The recovery distro so to speak will be created by simply installing Debian onto my hard disk using the netinst CD, installing the bare essentials and then running SalineOS Backup to create the image. It won't be live booted, it will actually be a fully installed Debian based distro, with the sole function of system restore and recovery. Think of the restore partitions that are often shipped on Dell and other big name computers, just created using .backup files that are generated with SalineOS Backup. Keeping the image as small as possible is a high priority, I originally intended not to even have networking support. I may or may not change my mind on this, depending on how things work out when I actually build the images.
Testdisk is a good suggestion, I will have to remember to add it. ClamTK with all the virus definitions and extras that are needed to make it useful are too big for me to consider including.
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debby
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| | Re: SalineOS backup
« Reply #59 on Apr 27, 2012, 12:17pm » | |
Changed my mind. Rlinux from r-studio instead of testdisk. It has a proper gui and I have used it in windows twice with excellent results. Either way I'm sure both would work fine. I suggest a browser only because at times when things go wrong the internet and it's many resources are invaluable.
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