LinuxQuestions.org - went and busted my Mint

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- - went and busted my Mint (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/went-and-busted-my-mint-4175551710/)

well its been a busy couple of days , iv nearly finished the re-install of mint , took mint 17.2-KDE this time 17.1 before. took a day to figure the gtx770 proper drivers & the tearing problem that was still there on a fresh install but found the fix again in the end (took weeks last time but i recognised the correct one this time round).

I should be done but no.. linux is never that simple :( , my HDMI audio out from the gtx770 to my TV will not work (*mumbles under breath*) pulseaudio states the HDMI is unplugged even though the video out from it is working fine. This is a new one to add to the list of "things that took me more than 3 hours to fix/figure out" because it worked fine on the previous installation of 17.1-KDEx64.

currently pulling page and pages of info that are full of commands that i have no idea about (youd prob say im mad for just banging in terminal commands that i dont know) but i shall keep trying whatever suggestions i find and just persevere.

p.s. o dam iv not started looking at the NAS yet either :( that was a right pain to get permanently mounted & accessible, o well be a week before i get this all working again. fun and games ^^

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackDinn (Post 5412044)

just persevere.

I tried 17.2/Xfce for about 5m. (couldn't change /away from the Mint-N-themes)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackDinn (Post 5411327)

i cant figure how to get at the logs so i can post them?

The next time you 'have to' do this, try adding "| pastebin" to each command
and then just post the url it spits out.
pastebin is installed with LinuxMint by default, as is "inxi", a very fast system 'profiler'

This output (sans any sudo password) will be sent to http://paste.linuxmint.com
and all you need to is post the link given after each of them executes

Code:

sudo inxi -U # Update inxi

sudo cat /var/log/apt/history.log | pastebin # Send contents of history log to a 'pastie' server hosted my LM.

sudo apt-get -s install electrum | pastebin  # Send results of apt-get -s to a 'pastie' server hosted my LM.

sudo apt-get -s install libgl1-mesa-glx | pastebin # Send results of apt-get -s to a 'pastie' server hosted my LM.

sudo inxci -c0 -Fsx | pastebin # Send your system profile (OS Details) to a 'pastie' server hosted by LM.

I dry-ran the electrum package and spit the results to | pastebin

Clean and efficient. Leaves you more time. ;)

As Fred Caro said, apt-get -s install <package> is a dry-run. Nothing gets installed so you can examine the impact.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto

thats cool, i learned something today :)(the pastebin stuff) thx

You are very welcome.

It's risky just typing in commands, especially from untrusted sites if it isn't explained what the command does.
Note that you often get free documentation by using the "man" command e.g.

Code:

man apt-get

will explain what apt-get can do.

It's easy:) to get auto-access to a NAS.

really, the little i remember i had to make files with short commands , something to do with fstab & smbcredentials and than the credentials line wouldnt accept my PW , then i found the command was a different syntax slightly from what was posted ... ahh you get the idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackDinn (Post 5412044)

This time around I highly suggest keeping a log of what you do! Just open up a text file, write down the problem you want to fix, and once you figure it out write down the final steps required. It takes almost zero effort, and it will save you countless hours of searching if you need to reinstall for whatever reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JackDinn (Post 5412080)

Didn't you make a backup? Just look at your old /etc/fstab and copy the line into the new one. You're making this process MUCH more difficult than it needs to be. It should take you less than an hour to get the new system up and running exactly like the old one, with decent notes and a backup of the old system to refer to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by suicidaleggroll (Post 5412094)

I second this

Here's my how to install Arch guide:

http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/...psmdxt873d.jpg

it's not really up to date anymore but I still follow it to make sure that everything is done

well im pretty much done, I have documented all the things i needed to do. i figured why the HDMI sound was not working and my nvidia drivers are all working properly. Sooo i think its time to take an image of the / partition. I have looked at a few backup programs but they seem to want to copy the whole thing rather than just backup the used space and they have to be run from a live disk. is there anything that i can use to take an image of the root partition while im on it (using it) and that will backup only the used space but retain the partition size and free space if i recover from it.

I looking for an easy/quick/GUI type of affair.

Thx all.

The usual way to do this is to make a list of your packages.
You don't need a backup of / as you can just do a reinstall.
Good idea to make a backup of /etc though.

I find that sbackup is a good way of backing up stuff.
It runs automatically, creating compressed differential backups which it writes to a disk etc.

i didnt separate /etc from / iv just got root and /swap so i want to take an image of the whole thing so i can restore it if needed.

If you don't have a separate /home partition it is hard to differentiate between your data and your system if you ever need to do a re-install.

i would do it differently next time but for now i just want to take an image of the whole partition.

Full system images aren't very useful IMO. They're a PITA to make, a PITA to carry around, you can't do differential backups, they take forever, you can't navigate through them, and if you don't keep up with re-imaging the partition at least once a month it's pretty much useless.

You're far better off just making a full rsync backup of the system. You can't boot off of it, but it'll contain everything in /etc, your crontabs, your entire /home partition, etc. all in a working, navigable directory structure, which makes it painless to navigate through and grab individual files you need for your restoration. If you screw something up, just reinstall the OS, copy your /home directory over, grab some snippets out of /etc and your old crontabs, and run one master apt-get install command to install all of your missing programs.

And you can do incremental backups, say one a day, that only take a few minutes to run but contain every file on the filesystem, and only take up the space of the files that changed since the previous backup.

It's significantly easier to make and maintain (which means you won't get lazy with your imaging, which makes it more useful), and it only takes slightly longer to restore from.

As for a full disk image, you ABSOLUTELY cannot make one with the system running. You MUST boot a different system, typically a live distro. That's a big part of what makes them such a PITA to keep up with. And a backup you don't keep up with isn't much of a backup at all.

again windows wins, i use Macrium Reflect on windows to backup the windows partition (while using it and running reflect on it), it takes no longer than an hour and enables me to completely restore a destroyed or virus ridden (although iv never had that particular problem) system very quickly.

I shall take a ponder on re-installing mint again with separate partitions for everything.

cheers