🚀 go-pugleaf

In aus.computers.linux on Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:50:08 +0000
gary <glralph@tpg.com.au> wrote:
> Volvo (so who do I ring When Ubuntu goes belly up?if you know someone I 
> would be to happy to ring them ) Volvo can help me over the phone or 
> come out to me failing that i can reset the electrics to limp mode a bit 
> like using the live disk so I can get to a work shop

Well... supposing a friend rang you and said "my truck's stopped.
There was a noise I think and its stopped.  You have to tell me how to
fix it"

I think you'd tell him something like "hey dopey, you have to tell me
what sort of noise and where from".

And if he said "I'm just a driver, I don't know or care, you have to
fix it" I suspect you'd tell him to bugger off until he was willing to
use a bit more sense....

So you need to always give people as much information as you can.
Always quote error messages in full.

Now if you want someone to come out and fix your machine the way Volvo
fixes your truck, you can.  Of course you will pay lotsandlots....  Up
to you.

But if you don't want to pay lotsandlots then you have to realise that
people are helping you because they are nice people.  Me, I'm paid a
fair amount to do this stuff by my employer, you get it for nothing.
But only if you are willing to do a bit of work yourself.  Willing to
think about what you are asking.

If you don't want to think about it but jsut want to be able to say
"my truck's stopped and you have to fix it" then you get to pay me a
lot of money for that.   

>> Note-- you did remember to make backups didn't you?
> whats a hard disk ?I am only a truck driver how do you make back ups 
> this thing ain,t got a reverse gear on it? or has it?

backups are copies of data.

If you have really really important pieces of paper, you can carry
them with you and use them all the time... and some bastard spills
coffee on them and they disintegrate.  It's your private data, you are
the only one who had it, if you only had that one copy, then you are
stuffed.

So the wise person photocopies them and keeps the copy safe somewhere.
That's what a "backup" is, a copy of you data so when (not if, when)
the copy you are using gets lost or damaged you still have the
information and can make another copy.

Of course you have to keep making your backup copies, because what
your data looks like now isn't what it looked like last year.  If the
only copy you have is from last year you will feel a right idiot....

And you will get no sympathy either.

So plan what you need to copy, how you'll do it, where you'll keep
that data, how often you will do it, and how you will get it back onto
your system if you need it.

Your job is to start looking on the net for ideas on how to do that.
Once you have ideas on what has to be backed up and how, then you can
ask if you have the right ideas and if your understanding is correct.

Zebee