Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:50:27 -0400 From: PJ <af.gourmet@videotron.ca> To: Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: moving a disk Message-ID: <4A931933.50808@videotron.ca> In-Reply-To: <20090824213654.GB43410@slackbox.xs4all.nl> References: <4A929241.5060406@videotron.ca> <4A92B6C4.8070309@videotron.ca> <20090824174937.GA43410@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <4A92DCF5.5000808@videotron.ca> <20090824213654.GB43410@slackbox.xs4all.nl>
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Roland Smith wrote: > On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 02:33:25PM -0400, PJ wrote: > >> I'm afraid I was a bit impatient >> > > Patience is a virtue. Installing stuff can take hours, and a split-second can > suffice to screw it all up. Been there & done that. :-) > > >> and messed up the already messed up >> disk... frankly, I don't recall whatever happened to the thing in the >> first place. >> > > Can I give you a tip? If you are doing something new or hairy, keep a laptop > or even a paper notebook handy and make notes of what you do. Write down the > commands that you use and any error messages that you get. > > My favorite technique is to open emacs (preferably on another machine), start > a terminal/ssh session inside an emacs buffer and then do my thing. This gives > me a complete record of what I've done. Save these session (with some added > explanations) to a file and you'll know what to do next time, or at least you > can explain to others what you've been doing. > > >> anyway, I'm just practicing another minimal install... it's not as bad as I >> had thought... I'm getting it all together now. >> > > There is an extremely easy way to get all ports that you need onto a new > machine, provided that you have a (base) machine of (a) the same FreeBSD major > version of (b) the same hardware architecture and (c) up-to-date installed > ports available. > > On the base machine, make dump(8)s of the filesystem(s) containing /usr/local, > /var/db/ports and /var/db/pkg and save them to files. Transfer those dump > files to an external harddisk or DVD. Using restore(8) interactively on the > new machine, restore these three directories to their respective filesystems > and you've got all ports up and running save for some editing of /etc/rc.conf. > > I'm not that organized, yet... ;-) but I have saved my rc.conf, smb.conf, httpd.conf. httpd-vhosts.conf 7 a number of other handy configuration files that I copy to new installations and tweak, if necessary; even the certificates for ssl work fine... so, now I think I'll follow your suggestion and keep a record and do the copy stuff - it also saves bandwidth so you don' t have to download all the distfiles... but I don't do any hairy stuff :-( just trying to K.I.S.S - and this will make it even simpler. Thanks again... learned again... >> Thanks much, I'm beginning >> to understand a bit more... this boot stuff sure is complicated... >> > > Yep. PC booting is a throwback to an earlier era when 640 kB RAM was all there > was and 512 bytes seemed big enough for boot code, because you were writing in > machine language or assembly anyway. > > If you want a real hair-raising story about the time that assemblers were > luxuries, google 'the story of Mel' and be amazed (or horrified). It predates > PCs, but I think it shows the mind-set of the begin time of (personal) > computing. > > Roland >
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