usability: fedora's killer app? Clean-Install Assistant...

[Morgan Read]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> On 8/31/06, Morgan Read <mstuff at read.org.nz> wrote:
>> Of course fedora is somewhat more sophisticated than MacOS 8.1, but the
>> principle's the same.  Basically, what I have to do at least every
>> 6mths is:
>> - List my packages
> easily done.. and in fact a nightly list of packages is generated by a
> cronscript
> /var/log/rpmpkgs  by the associated cronjob.

That's interesting, but not very useful for diff'ing before and after and
running yum against - for that something like:
$ rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n" | sort -n
is necessary.

And, then you'd want to add in some information about which packages have been
obsoleted and replaced...  And then, some information about the implications for
the various configs involved...
> 
>> - List all changes to /home/me/
> 
> changes in /home/ could not be tracked since pretty much everything
> down in /home/ is non-default and its not even regarded as system
> information. You would need to backup all of /home/, no need to try to
> track changes inside /home when all of /home is considered a
> customization.

See my response to Rahul.

But, to be honest, I can't keep a track of what's custom and what's default in
the various .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .evolution .nautilus etc...; you get
the picture - it's a right royal pita

...
>> - back up /home/me/ and /etc/
> 
> backup to where and how?  backing up a user's space while outside of
> an enterprise network is still a huge problem with no reasonably

I usually just move them to /home/mex/ /home/etc/  (guess it's pretty much
what's suggested by Rahul at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AnacondaWorkItems#upgrade, plus /home/)
...
> We need to solve the problem of providing a generally useful and
> accessible backup facility that can handle removable media, local
I've been using Mondo - but, that's a different context.  I don't understand why
it's not included somewhere.

...
> Easily said... not easily done if there is system configuration syntax
> changes which requires hand editting.  Didn't we just see this sort of
> thing happen in fc5 with the internal changes in apache's modules?
I was envisioning something that could diff the two files and offer options
about what to do about those diff's, with some contextual info thrown in for
good measure

...
> rpmpkg log already exists
> rpm -V  can tell you what configs have been customized
> rpm -qf can be used to see if files in /etc/ are unknown to rpm and
> thus may need to be backed up.
> 
> writing a simple script to parse these isn't a big deal.... in fact
> this is the sort of thing perl is only good for.
> 
> The big gaping hole in the set of technology needed for your wizard is
> a comprehensive and accessible backup technology that is easily
I think Rhoul has covered that in his link ref'd above?

Regards,
M.
-- 
Morgan Read
NEW ZEALAND
<mailto:mstuffATreadDOTorgDOTnz>

fedora: Freedom Forever!
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview

"By choosing not to ship any proprietary or binary drivers, Fedora does differ
from other distributions. ..."
Quote: Max Spevik
       http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/17/177220

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