A big part of learning Linux is screwing up computers and starting over.
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
Once you break it a few times, you start to understand the value of btrfs or ZFS snapshots.
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
Just did a fresh install after attempting to migrate from a proxmox VM to baremetal (turns out my mobo only supports UEFI and after spending an hr trying to convert I just gave up and reinstalled)
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OpenSuse Tumbleweed helps because you can create a btrfs snapshot at any moment and then roll back to it if you get in trouble. And it does this automatically whenever you update the packages.
never had to start over -
My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
Making errors and analysing them to figure out what went wrong and why is a huge part of learning. You can only learn so much from theory, some things can be learned best by trial and error and the experience gained from it.
When I started with Linux I did choose to use Gentoo Linux because it was the most complex and complicated option, so I had the most opportunities to learn something by ducking up!
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My test of Timeshift was pretty simple and straightforward.
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Fresh install Linux Mint
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Install most of the main software I wanted.
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Do a Timeshift backup.
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Install some extra software I didn't necessarily need, but might want to use someday.
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Restore the backup from step 3.
Results: Everything from step 4 was still registered as installed, but almost nothing from step 4 actually worked.
So I brute force reinstalled everything in place, and haven't used Timeshift since. I'm perfectly comfortable using the terminal, and at worst a live boot media, to fix any issues that might come up.
Timeshift is a good piece of software doing a tired trick.
The new hotness is copy on write file systems and snapshots. I can snapshot, instantly, then do a system update and revert to the previous snapshot also instantly.
Instead of using symlinks files, like Timeshift, the filesystem is keeping track of things at the block level.
If you update a block it writes a new copy of the block (copy on write). The old copy is still there and will be overwritten unless it is part of a snapshot. Since the block is already written, snapshots don't require any data to be copied so they're instant.
Once you finish the system update, all of the overwritten blocks are still there (part of the snapshot) and reverting is also just a filesystem operation, theres no mass data to be copied and so it is also instant.
It does use disk space, as allocated blocks AND snapshotted blocks are stored. It uses less than Timeshift though, since Timeshift copies the entire file when it changes
ZFS and btrfs are the ones to use.
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Not quite. But sorta, yeah.
Learning to "not fuck with it" or ways to do so and rollback are valid lessons themselves.
Being able to segregate "production" and "development" environments is very valuable.
Being able to segregate "production" and "development" environments is very valuable.
This is a best practice that pretty much everyone, eventually, discovers on their own.
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I always think of Kiwi / Ozzie slang when I type chroot.
Of course that's after consulting the ArchKiwi to remember how to mount it
Ah Chroot bro
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OpenSuse Tumbleweed helps because you can create a btrfs snapshot at any moment and then roll back to it if you get in trouble. And it does this automatically whenever you update the packages.
Been looking for a DR system for Ubuntu or mint, need to look into it myself but would like some feedback if this could be the right ticket.
I just bought a raspberry pi 4 to host plex, I'm sure I could get it to do backup and restore too. Looking into it
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The "starting over" part is what made it take so long for linux to "stick" with me.
Once it became "restore from an earlier image", it was a game changer!
"Starting over" is how we learnt Windows in the 90's too
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"Starting over" is how we learnt Windows in the 90's too
I'd just re-install Windows over the top of the fucked up install normally. It was a bit easier to recover from, and a bit harder to fuck up
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
I remember managing to installing two DE one above the other, and having them, somehow working at the exact same time. That was trippy.
I didn't even know how I did it.
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
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OpenSuse Tumbleweed helps because you can create a btrfs snapshot at any moment and then roll back to it if you get in trouble. And it does this automatically whenever you update the packages.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Gang.
The only distro I haven't been able to break after 6 months (well, I have, but I've been able to snapper rollback every time) -
Timeshift is a good piece of software doing a tired trick.
The new hotness is copy on write file systems and snapshots. I can snapshot, instantly, then do a system update and revert to the previous snapshot also instantly.
Instead of using symlinks files, like Timeshift, the filesystem is keeping track of things at the block level.
If you update a block it writes a new copy of the block (copy on write). The old copy is still there and will be overwritten unless it is part of a snapshot. Since the block is already written, snapshots don't require any data to be copied so they're instant.
Once you finish the system update, all of the overwritten blocks are still there (part of the snapshot) and reverting is also just a filesystem operation, theres no mass data to be copied and so it is also instant.
It does use disk space, as allocated blocks AND snapshotted blocks are stored. It uses less than Timeshift though, since Timeshift copies the entire file when it changes
ZFS and btrfs are the ones to use.
Didn’t quite follow what you were saying completely.
Are you suggesting a new program over time shift or change the file system type like ZFS and Btrfs?
I’m using Ubuntu and not sure if I seen those before. -
OpenSuse Tumbleweed helps because you can create a btrfs snapshot at any moment and then roll back to it if you get in trouble. And it does this automatically whenever you update the packages.
I wanted to give OpenSuse Tumbleweed a go yesterday, but the live USB got stuck at “Loading basic drivers” so I couldn’t even get to being able to install it.
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That also sounds like a good way to stop learning!
wrote on last edited by [email protected].
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
I haven't majorly fucked up any recent systems (almost botched the steam deck once or twice but nothing that required a reinstall), but god 10 years ago I probably reset my arch dual boot like five times lmao
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
It's the same as learning anything, really. A big part of learning to draw is making thousands of bad drawings. A big part of learning DIY skills is not being afraid to cut a hole in the wall. Plan to screw up. Take your time, be patient with yourself, and read ahead so none of the potential screw-ups hurt you. Don't be afraid to look foolish, reality is absurd, it's fine.
We give children largess to fail because they have everything to learn. Then, as adults, we don't give ourselves permission to fail. But why should we be any better than children at new things? Many adults have forgotten how fraught the process of learning new skills is and when they fail they get scared and frustrated and quit. That's just how learning feels. Kids cry a lot. Puttering around on a spare computer is an extremely safe way to become reacquainted with that feeling and that will serve you well even if you decide you don't like Linux and never touch it again. Worst case you fucked up an old laptop that was collecting dust. That is way better than cutting a hole in the wall and hitting a pipe.
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"Starting over" is how we learnt Windows in the 90's too
Giving our computer ghonorrea by downloading Napster mp3s
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My crippled kernel count is around 6, how about yours?
I haven't had any issues with the kernel yet. The worst thing that I can remember doing is messing up the systemd boot entry on my Arch Linux install.
