Backing up whole system

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 09 May 2009, Craig White wrote:
[...]
>If it puts the files in the same places (and for the life of me, I don't
>understand why would you have tarball installations install anywhere
>other than /usr/local)

I usually do use /usr/local for that, the exceptions being, for instance, when 
I built the newer kaffeine, I wanted to replace the broken version 8.3 with 
8.4.  I couldn't remove 8.3 because of dependencies that took half of kde with 
it.  That is not my choice, nor is it my fault that such a choice is forced on 
me by the slowness of the packagers.  8.4 has been out for 4 or 5 months, but 
I don't see an updated package in the repos now do I?

>and doesn't trash your configuration files and
>creates users/groups, properly assigns privileges and runs whatever
>scripts post-install you need, it will work. The problem is never rpm
>packaging itself but the arguments that build the packages, the method
>of building the packages (shouldn't be done as root), and the scripts
>which are executed pre/post installation.
>
>Blaming rpm is ridiculous. Not wanting to take the time to learn how to
>successfully package something is understandable. It does take an
>investment in time & energy. Documentation is lacking.

I hereby nominate that statement as the statement of the year, and it just 
keeps getting worse.
 
>Whether you
>succeed or not in successfully building amanda rpm's will be determined
>by your desire to get it done and nothing else. We have had this
>discussion before. I am amused that you won't simply admit that you
>aren't willing to invest your time learning how to build rpms and
>instead cast about looking for excuses why it won't work...the FC2
>"foibles" is a new one.

That is what I had installed the last time I tried to make an rpm.  Frankly 
Craig, I can make an installable rpm with checkinstall a heck of a lot easier 
than I can any other way.  But I haven't figured how to do that and make the 
versions stick so rpm knows there is indeed a newer package installed than 
what is in the repo's, so I either have to make excludes for yum or make the 
installed stuff all chattr +i.  Neither is a long term solution.  If I install 
the tarball, its there, it works and because rpm has no knowledge of it, it 
doesn't constantly nag me to install the repo's 3 or more versions older 
packages.

>My objection in this thread was your recommendation to the OP that he
>install from source tarballs when amanda is available via pre-built rpm
>packages in fedora already as if it is a reasonable suggestion that
>others follow your footsteps. It was not a reasonable suggestion.

I think it is, although in the last year, the number of incidents of people 
coming to the amanda-users list for help with rpms has dropped noticeably.  I 
have NDI if its because the rpms are now working "out of the box" or if its 
because there seems to be a wider selection of ways to do it that appeal to 
the user, newbie or old hand, meaning amanda is getting onto fewer systems.  I 
personally like the set it up once and forget it until you need to recover 
something that amanda offers.  Heck, even the $3500 a seat Arkeia takes far 
more fiddling than amanda, every time you want to run it.  Hell of a way to 
run a train.  IMNSHO, the eye candy doesn't cut it, good backups do.

My last post in this thread.  However, if the OP installs the amanda rpms and 
it works the way it is supposed to, I would very much like to hear about that.  

Most folks just go away once the question has been answered/argued about 
without ever letting us know of the successes or failures of our chosen 
methods.  That leaves both of us in the dark calling each other less than 
experts.  And that isn't pretty to the bystanders.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Plus ,ca change, plus c'est la m^eme chose.
	[The more things change, the more they remain the same.]
		-- Alphonse Karr, "Les Gu^epes"