1. RE: Backups
> >I thought it might amuse you folks to hear that I am a
> >long-term programmer who does not use backups.
> >I don't use an autosaving editor or a UPS. The rare backups
> >that I have made have never been used.
>
> >I do save my edit files frequently, and on the rare times
> >that Windows crashes,
>
The problem with power going out is not just your unsaved work. It can
easily wipe out a whole drive. This can happen if you get a very short
"blip" -- the power cuts off, and before the motor on your drive even
gets a chance to wind down, it comes back with a big surge and kablooie.
This happened to me. I was able to recover the data, but I had to go
out a buy a new drive to copy it to (you have to copy it elsewhere).
2. RE: Backups
check out linux mandrake, i think its the best of the linux series, it
is even battling with XP when it comes to graphics
acran at readout.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
> Hi Euman,
>
> At 20:04 25/03/02 -0500, you wrote:
> <snip>
> >I have to say that recently when I updated my Win98 box to IE6
> >I havent seen a crash in several months.
> <snip>
>
> I might bump up my Windows 98 SE machine from IE5.5 to IE6 but as it's
> only
> a 450 Mhz AMD with 128 meg of RAM I'm worried IE6 will be too much of a
> resource hog. Any thoughts?
>
> <snip>
> >LINUX RANT:
> <snip>
>
> You know how to make me bite 
>
> <snip>
> >I can tell you that anyone who thinks Linux is faster and safer than
> >Windows has been brain washed by someone.
> <snip>
>
> I don't run a desktop on my Linux machine. It's more of a server.
> Backups
> via FTP, system snapshots using a large Samba share, email gateway using
> sendmail, web proxy using squid. Those sorts of things so I have no
> need
> for a graphical user interface. The good old command line works for me
> on
> this system. Hence I can't comment on whether a Linux GUI is faster
> than
> the Windows one.
>
> As for safer you'll have to clarify what safer means for you. Perhaps
> defining dangerous instead might help.
>
> <snip>
> >Try running Linux on a i486 processor.
> > * SLOW, SLOW and way SLOW *
> <snip>
>
> Try running Windows 95 on a i486 processor - that is also slow. I get
> just
> passable performance running Windows 95 (OSRB) on a Pentium 75 with 48
> megabytes of RAM. Then again all I do on that system is surf the net
> and
> search/download MP3 files
>
> <snip>
> >Not to mention you have to keep recompiling the kernel
> >for everychange you make to your system.
> <snip>
>
> Now not every change surely The up side is that you have precise
> control over the changes.
>
> <snip>
> >Some people say that Linux is more stable and hardly crashes and I
> >say that when it does make a mistake it doesnt let you know until you
> >cant boot the O/S anymore.
> <snip>
>
> Linux, like most UNIX implementations, is generally very good at
> allowing
> you to backout your changes as long as you have taken the correct steps
> beforehand to do so (recent recovery diskettes, copies of previous
> config
> files etc). Also good systems management practice is to not perform
> many
> changes at once. If you have two changes to make and both require a
> reboot
> then do the first change, reboot, do the second change and reboot a
> second
> time. Don't do change one followed by change two and then a single
> reboot.
> It might work but then again it might not. If possible do the first
> change and run the system for a while to check it is still stable before
> applying the second change. Thay way if one of the changes does cause
> unstable behaviour you have a better chance of guessing which one (and
> hence which change to backout/reverse).
>
> Now consider this: if upgrading from IE5.5 to IE6 made your Windows
> machine
> more unstable how would you backout that change? It's difficult because
> you have no idea what the upgrade changed in the first place because Mr.
> Gates and his microsoftees won't tell you. If you had the time,
> inclination and patience you could maybe work out what the changes were
> but
> I wouldn't fancy this sort of reverse engineering task.
>
> My experience with Linux is that it is more stable - uptimes in Linux
> out
> perform those on Windows - YMMV.
>
> <snip>
> >Linux Black-Hats chew on those words.
> <snip>
>
<snip>
3. RE: Backups
I also do not like 'smart' (so-called, anyway) software that backs up my
work for me. Over the years, I've learned to save frequently. I use
the DJGPP port of RCS to back up important work (and VSS from MS,
because it's required at work), and I'm learning to use the CYGWIN port
of CVS (a concurrent archival system much like VSS). I've worked on
VAXes with RMS in the past (RMS is a versioning filesystem), and it's
convenient to have multiple versions of files hanging around, but they
soon take up too much room unless you remember to put a version limit on
the file or its directory. Archiving systems usually save the
_differences_ between files and the latest version, so that it can work
backwards to recover older versions, and all your _important_ work is
thus recoverable.
Unfortunately, not everybody has reliable power, but even when I've
worked in areas that have frequent power interruptions, I've only rarely
lost work, and never anything not easily recovered. This may be dumb
luck, but my experience stretches over almost three decades now, with
power provided from everybody to Florida Flicker and Flash to Seabrook
Nuclear Power Station. The bottom line is that you should SAVE
FREQUENTLY and RATIONALLY.
Thx, Phil Long
kbochert at ix.netcom.com wrote:
> -------Phoenix-Boundary-07081998-
> Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit
>
>
> Backups are for wimps! 
>
> I thought it might amuse you folks to hear that I am a
> long-term programmer who does not use backups.
> I don't use an autosaving editor or a UPS. The rare backups
> that I have made have never been used.
>
> I do save my edit files frequently, and on the rare times
> that Windows crashes, I might lose as much as 20 minutes
> of edits, but I find they are so fresh in my mind that I can
> recreate them in 5 minutes (and do them more cleanly besides).
>
> I also use Qwin to create an audit trail of software versions
> and this has enabled me to back out of an ill-advised change,
> but has never been used to recover from a system failure.
>
> I guess it helps to be on friendly terms with the hardware
>
> Karl Bochert
>
>
> -------Phoenix-Boundary-07081998---
>
4. RE: Backups
euman at bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> Not to mention you have to keep recompiling the kernel
> for everychange you make to your system.
Gee, the things you learn on this list.
If I had known this, I wouldn't have changed motherboards
3 times, hard-drives twice, 3 different NIC's, and video cards twice.
All without recompiling anything.
I guess ignorance "is" bliss. Just load and run, don't know
no different:)
> Some people say that Linux is more stable and hardly crashes and I
> say that when it does make a mistake it doesnt let you know until > you
> cant boot the O/S anymore.
IOW, it doesn't stop someone with root priviledges from
mucking around with stuff they shouldn't be mucking around
in? How's that different from Windows or DOS?
Regards,
Irv
