FC6 equivalent to Windows System Restore

[David Timms]

Alexander Apprich wrote:
> linux wrote:
>> I finially have my FC6 installation the way i like it.... I am sure at 
>> some point in the future, I am going to mess it up though.  In Windows 
>> there is the System Restore capability.  How can I achieve the same 
>> effect under FC6.  That is, roll back changes that did not work out 
>> the way I assumed etc.   Basically, undoing dumb stuff.
>>
>> The best way would be 'Don't do dumb stuff" but being rather new to 
>> linux, the fact that what I am about to do is dumb, does not occur to 
>> me until after I am through doing it....
> 
> on sourceforge.net there are at 2 projects
> 
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/yarbu/
> 
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext3snapshot/
I don't know of anything that works like the sys restore, however:

If you plan on just modifying / deleting files willy-nilly then
- don't do it and or
- make a copy of any file you are messing with {eg cp fred 
fred.2006-12-03.before-upgrade }  before you change it.
- know that runlevel 1 might help get a nuked system booting again so 
that you can fix the above. {appended to the grub kernel line}
- know that booting the rescue cd might be required depending on what 
you do.
- rpm -qf /what/is/this/file  can tell you to which package the file 
belongs.

If you are planning on doing normal _by package_ things using yum 
(recommended) then
- in /etc/yum.conf:
keepcache=1
This means that any packages installed/or updated via yum will be kept 
on disk {/var/cache/yum by default}. This makes it easier to re-install 
or overwrite an old version of a package should it be required to get 
back to a standard install of that package. Requires the use of rpm to 
get the same package installed.
- rpm -V can be used to verify files on disk with the original rpm that 
installed them. It lists the files that differ and could be useful in 
remembering what files have been changed.
- when packages are modified using yum {including gui's that use it such 
as pup package updater and pirut package install/remove} they are logged 
in /var/log/yum.log
- saving the complete packages installed list would be good if you end 
up needing to reinstall from scratch
{ rpm -qa>packages.2006-12-whenever.txt }.

An rsync of the /etc/* folder while containing a lot of standard stuff, 
would also contain any customizations of system stuff should you need to 
"go back". User customizations are generally hidden {.} files under the 
users' home directory. Back this up as well.

DaveT.