January 2006 - main

RE: [ALUG] Transferring Linux to another hard drive
by Keith Watson 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

> From: David Fairey Sent: 29 January 2006 11:21 > > Hi guys, > > I'm looking to transfer one of my linux boxes from it's 3Gb > drive to a bigger drive (40Gb). > > What's the easiest method to transfer a partition including > the boot manager to another drive? when I upgraded from a 20Gb HD to an 80Gb HD recently I used the free edition of HDClone <http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html#free>. (as I had a dual boot WinXP / Ubuntu setup it got round all the irritating XP idiosyncrasies). > How can the root partition be resize afterwards? Or would it > make sense to start using a separate /var, /usr partitions? I used the SystemRescueCD <http://www.sysresccd.org/> and the QTParted and partimage utilise it offers to shuffle my Linux partitions around (but be careful about the partition orders and names I inadvertently moved my root partition from /dev/hda5 to /dev/hda7 and Ubuntu got really snotty about it :-) ). Personally I always have separate partitions for /usr, /var, /home, /tmp, /home/[my home dir] and /[my mail dir] because; a) I can keep better track of how and where the space is being used b) it makes backing up easier, I just back up the entire partition to a CD-RW Actually when I did the HD upgrade I also put in a DVD writer, so I now back up the partitions to a DVD+RW, but the principle's the same except I now have a 5Gb max partition size (which I can easily get on a single DVD) rather than 2Gb (which would sometimes go on to 2 CDs even with compression). I use partimage to do this now, but I used to use tar. Regards, Keith ____________ The little things in life are as interesting as the big ones. - Henry David Thoreau

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Re: Transferring Linux to another hard drive (Wayne Stallwood)
by Peter 31 Jan '06

31 Jan '06

So pleased to find people writing about this. I am bringing up a very small local web server - it will only be accessed by two or three machines on the same local ethernet. Scratching my head about how to set up the partitions, and in the end went for / and a separate /home partition only. Is the consensus that this is fairly sensible? While asking, would you all use Apache, or is it sensible to use one of the mini servers - boa or thttpd? Peter > > I usually run a separate /home but that's about it. >

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Quick 'n' dirty warning email if disk usage low
by Mark Rogers 31 Jan '06

31 Jan '06

If I want to run a script on my externally hosted server to mark me if my disk space is getting low, what's the simplest way to do it? Say I want a report if "df" reports more than 90% used, I want the script to run regularly but not send an email every time it runs if the problem hasn't worsend, and want to include the output from 'du -h' in the email? Then, once I have that sorted, what's the "best" way to do this kind of thing? Oh, and what's the best way to work out *why* I only have 1% left on my server? -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 30 Jan '06

30 Jan '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Transferring Linux to another hard drive
by David Fairey 29 Jan '06

29 Jan '06

Hi guys, I'm looking to transfer one of my linux boxes from it's 3Gb drive to a bigger drive (40Gb). What's the easiest method to transfer a partition including the boot manager to another drive? How can the root parition be resize afterwards? Or would it make sense to start using a separate /var, /usr partitions? Mounted devices are /dev/hda1 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw) usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw) Cheers David

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Boot problem with external drive
by Barry Samuels 29 Jan '06

29 Jan '06

In the event that something goes wrong with my desktop, other than a problem with the hard drive, I want to be able to boot from the hard drive that normally resides in my desktop but with it connected as an external hard drive to my laptop. My laptop is a Thinkpad R51. In the BIOS there is an option to boot from: -USB Hard Drive. I don't know what the '-' in front of the USB is for - none of the other USB boot options has a dash in front of it. I've compiled a 2.6.8 kernel, on the (external) hard drive, to suit the Thinkpad and the Thinkpad will start to boot from that drive after I select the special kernel but stops with a kernel panic: VFS: Cannot open root device "30e" or unknown-block(3,14) Please append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(3,14) The Linux root partition on that disk is partition 14. When I've had this sort of problem before it's been because I've had and IDE opion either unset or set as a module instead of being compiled in but I've checked and rechecked and cannot see what is wrong. The relevant IDE kernel settings are: # # IDE chipset support/bugfixes # CONFIG_IDE_GENERIC=y CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD640=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD640_ENHANCED is not set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI=y CONFIG_IDEPCI_SHARE_IRQ=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_OFFBOARD is not set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_GENERIC=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_OPTI621 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RZ1000 is not set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_FORCED is not set CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO=y # CONFIG_IDEDMA_ONLYDISK is not set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ADMA=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_AEC62XX is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ALI15X3 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_AMD74XX is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_ATIIXP is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CMD64X is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_TRIFLEX is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CY82C693 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CS5520 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_CS5530 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HPT34X is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HPT366 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SC1200 is not set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NS87415 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PDC202XX_OLD is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PDC202XX_NEW is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SVWKS is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIIMAGE is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SIS5513 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SLC90E66 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_TRM290 is not set # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_VIA82CXXX is not set # CONFIG_IDE_ARM is not set # CONFIG_IDE_CHIPSETS is not set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y # CONFIG_IDEDMA_IVB is not set CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HD is not set I copied the kernel config from the laptop initially and changed the IDE settings to suit the hard drive on the desktop. Can anyone suggest anything I have missed? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Linux On P2 (Was Ubuntu)
by Simon Royal 28 Jan '06

28 Jan '06

Hi Following up from your views on Ubuntu. If I was to get a laptop about P2 400 what would be a good Linux distro. It would need to run pretty fast. I realise the machine isn't super quick, but I know Linux runs a damn site better and faster than Windows. All I would want it for is Wi- Fi access so would need a distro that would pick up a wireless card and run internet, email and office apps like OpenOffice. Regards Simon Royal >- The box said Windows 2000 or better, so I bought a Mac

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Re: DSL
by David Noble 27 Jan '06

27 Jan '06

> Message: 8 > Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 10:36:13 +0000 > From: Simon Royal <s.royal(a)totalise.co.uk> > Subject: [ALUG] Damn Small Linux > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <039aa294024c1b5bf04d436c4f1f05e0(a)totalise.co.uk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed > > Hi > > I have been reading about DSL (Damn Small Linux) and wondered if anyone > had any experience with it. I know it is capable of running on a 386, > so my problem of finding a cheap Pentium laptop to run Linux on > sufficiently shouldn't be a problem. > > I wondered if anyone knows how stable it is? does it work with wifi > cards? what the desktop is like? any general info? > > > Kind Regards > > Simon Royal > > ---- > www.majikb.co.uk > The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac Regarding DSL: I tried it on my now Debian machine- it installed ok; but I had problems with APT. Although it was nice to have X pre-configured, and a whole load of software ready-to-go, I found it was better to start with Debian Sarge from scratch. DSL (as i'm sure you have read) starts as a Live CD. Download it and see it for yourself- you may have better experiences with APT. Regards, Dave.

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Excluding a directory with cpio
by Wayne Stallwood 27 Jan '06

27 Jan '06

I am trying to write some automation into a tape based DR process for an elderly SCO unix Box I have an archive of the live systems complete filesystem which I can recover using a carefully formatted cpio command. However I want to exclude a few of the top level directories from this recovery (mostly /stand). I've worked out how to use the find command to extract only certain files, but how do I do the opposite ?

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Damn Small Linux
by Simon Royal 26 Jan '06

26 Jan '06

Hi I have been reading about DSL (Damn Small Linux) and wondered if anyone had any experience with it. I know it is capable of running on a 386, so my problem of finding a cheap Pentium laptop to run Linux on sufficiently shouldn't be a problem. I wondered if anyone knows how stable it is? does it work with wifi cards? what the desktop is like? any general info? Kind Regards Simon Royal ---- www.majikb.co.uk The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac

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