sam rosenfeld

Over several months I have tried to fix (or improve) sound, mail, X
windows, and much more. Now, each time I boot up it's an adventure.
For the most part I have tried to decipher whatever relevant docs I
could lay my hands on, but my fiddling has clearly made things worse.
I hardly know what's what in my single-user box, which contains Debian
3.0, Linux 2.2.20, mutt, galeon, python2.1, tcl/tk8.3 and a host of
mathematical, analytical, and context-specific applications which may
not be problematic.

The question is: Given my current state, is it reasonable to try to
fix each of my problems separately, or would it be more sensible to
keep only the critical data and start over with a new installation?
(At this point I think I'm ready to create a box-within-a-box where all
changes could be tested before they become part of my working system.)
My request is vague because I can't even specify where all the problems
lie, and I'm not sure where I've strayed (as root, no less!) in my
attempt to get things going as well as I could make them.

Would deeply appreciate any words of wisdom.

sam


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sam rosenfeld

Over several months I have tried to fix (or improve) sound, mail, X
windows, and much more. Now, each time I boot up it's an adventure.
For the most part I have tried to decipher whatever relevant docs I
could lay my hands on, but my fiddling has clearly made things worse.
I hardly know what's what in my single-user box, which contains Debian
3.0, Linux 2.2.20, mutt, galeon, python2.1, tcl/tk8.3 and a host of
mathematical, analytical, and context-specific applications which may
not be problematic.

The question is: Given my current state, is it reasonable to try to
fix each of my problems separately, or would it be more sensible to
keep only the critical data and start over with a new installation?
(At this point I think I'm ready to create a box-within-a-box where all
changes could be tested before they become part of my working system.)
My request is vague because I can't even specify where all the problems
lie, and I'm not sure where I've strayed (as root, no less!) in my
attempt to get things going as well as I could make them.

Would deeply appreciate any words of wisdom.

sam


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nano nano

When I was learning last spring, I reinstalled my computer 5 or 6 times
*per day*, trying stuff in Debian, trying Knoppix, Mandrake, Redhat,
&c., to see how "they did it."

Eventually I figured it out: but I solved each issue one a time, and it
was like pulling teeth. Basically I would read online and learn
"partial information" until I'd tried every "bad" permutation and
finally learned the right one.

Now I have my install scripted: boot from Woody, install, upgrade to SID
from local partial mirror, run scripts. I wipe the disk or reinstall
when anything gets the least bit squirrelly, which can be as little as
one day or as much as every couple months.

Works for me.


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nano nano

When I was learning last spring, I reinstalled my computer 5 or 6 times
*per day*, trying stuff in Debian, trying Knoppix, Mandrake, Redhat,
&c., to see how "they did it."

Eventually I figured it out: but I solved each issue one a time, and it
was like pulling teeth. Basically I would read online and learn
"partial information" until I'd tried every "bad" permutation and
finally learned the right one.

Now I have my install scripted: boot from Woody, install, upgrade to SID
from local partial mirror, run scripts. I wipe the disk or reinstall
when anything gets the least bit squirrelly, which can be as little as
one day or as much as every couple months.

Works for me.


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hugo vanwoerkom

First I never have only one Debian partition, but several.
Second I use both mondo and partimage to always back everything up
before making big changes.
Case in point: I backed off a woody partition yesterday because Mozilla
1.6b was segfaulting when used by a new user.
I went back to the woody system I left on 12/20. Nothing lost, I am just
going to start over.
A large HD is your friend and they certainly are cheap now.

Hugo.


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hugo vanwoerkom

First I never have only one Debian partition, but several.
Second I use both mondo and partimage to always back everything up
before making big changes.
Case in point: I backed off a woody partition yesterday because Mozilla
1.6b was segfaulting when used by a new user.
I went back to the woody system I left on 12/20. Nothing lost, I am just
going to start over.
A large HD is your friend and they certainly are cheap now.

Hugo.


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nate duehr

Zero specifics about what's wrong or what problems you're having, so zero
advice possible on how to fix it.

You'll have to make an attempt to explain the symptoms, or the question is impossible to answer.


Cost/Benefit analysis works here:

Reloading is virtually guaranteed to work if you're careful about backing up
all of your important data. Benefit: Will work. Risk: Could lose data. You
won't learn anything.

Fixing it carries with it the benefit of learning in more detail how things
work and learning where your mistakes were. If you have the time, this is
the path I would personally take, but... many people won't or can't do this.

In other words, just like before your post... it's totally up to you. What do
you want to do? The list is here and most of us will try to help on specific
problems if we've seen them before.

As far as "after it's fixed"... learn this from your experience. Never do
anything you don't know how to back out of. Get in the habit of not running
as root, force yourself to use sudo for things, and ask yourself three times
before you edit something as root if you can get back to where you are. Make
ONE change at a time and let it be for a few days. You'll be a cautious,
professional admin quickly if you start respecting the problems you can cause
yourself as root. (Of course, the Catch-22 is that you have to have messed
it all up at least once to understand this.)

Finally, learn to make backups of your system. They are you "last defense"
against YOURSELF and your users 99.9% of the time. Hardware/disk failure is
the SECOND reason for backups... the majority of the time backups are used in
the real-world admin environment to put back something someone deleted.
Human error is far more deadly to production boxes than hardware failure ever
will be.

Manage your risks. That's the best advice I can give.

--
Nate Duehr, nate@natetech.com


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nate duehr

Zero specifics about what's wrong or what problems you're having, so zero
advice possible on how to fix it.

You'll have to make an attempt to explain the symptoms, or the question is impossible to answer.


Cost/Benefit analysis works here:

Reloading is virtually guaranteed to work if you're careful about backing up
all of your important data. Benefit: Will work. Risk: Could lose data. You
won't learn anything.

Fixing it carries with it the benefit of learning in more detail how things
work and learning where your mistakes were. If you have the time, this is
the path I would personally take, but... many people won't or can't do this.

In other words, just like before your post... it's totally up to you. What do
you want to do? The list is here and most of us will try to help on specific
problems if we've seen them before.

As far as "after it's fixed"... learn this from your experience. Never do
anything you don't know how to back out of. Get in the habit of not running
as root, force yourself to use sudo for things, and ask yourself three times
before you edit something as root if you can get back to where you are. Make
ONE change at a time and let it be for a few days. You'll be a cautious,
professional admin quickly if you start respecting the problems you can cause
yourself as root. (Of course, the Catch-22 is that you have to have messed
it all up at least once to understand this.)

Finally, learn to make backups of your system. They are you "last defense"
against YOURSELF and your users 99.9% of the time. Hardware/disk failure is
the SECOND reason for backups... the majority of the time backups are used in
the real-world admin environment to put back something someone deleted.
Human error is far more deadly to production boxes than hardware failure ever
will be.

Manage your risks. That's the best advice I can give.

--
Nate Duehr, nate@natetech.com


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nate duehr

Backups backups backups. Stop wiping and start restoring, if the "squirrelly"
behavior was caused by the admin, the admin should be able to put things back
the way they were. Right?

--
Nate Duehr, nate@natetech.com


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nate duehr

Backups backups backups. Stop wiping and start restoring, if the "squirrelly"
behavior was caused by the admin, the admin should be able to put things back
the way they were. Right?

--
Nate Duehr, nate@natetech.com


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