Kevan,<br><br>I don't really need to format the usb disk as ext3 because I only want to use it for 3 reasons: to store films etc on it (which I also have as DVDs), to keep monthly backup copies of the full file system (excluding /media etc), and to keep backup copies of /home (full monthly & incremental occasional). So ext2 is quite sufficient.<br>
<br>The advantage of FAT32 is that it allowed me to set (in gconf-editor)
for system/storage/default_options/vfat, gid=users (after putting all
my users in Group users and adding a line for gdi= in
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-storage-methods.fdi: this then
allows me to write to a memory stick and FAT32 formatted usb drive for any user irrespective of which
user was logged in when the memory stick was mounted. Obviously, I could do this using Nautilus.<br><br>When I now use partition editor to partition/format the usb drive as ext2, it sets the owner & group as root. This then prevents me (in Nautilus) creating directories and copying files to it:. So I have to use the CLI (which I'd prefer not to use) to do these tasks with 'su root'. This then results in all dirs & files having owner & group as root unless I remember to cp -p. If I use SimpleBackup, will it write OK to the usb drive?<br>
<br>Partimage is a real pain to get going due to it not being able to copy a mounted partition. So I tried to run it after booting from a usb stick containg Live Ubuntu Jaunty. Partimage wasn't an installed package and 'Live' jaunty wouldn't let me download it! So I tried to create persistent jaunty on the usb stick using Portable Linux (as per Ubuntu Community documentation): that refuses to work: giving out an error about the usb stick (see attached file) but it still wrote to the usb stick: so I'll now try it - if it fails I should still be able to create a persistent ubuntu alter bringing up Live from another usb stickt! Has anybody had success with PortableLinux on Jaunty? <br>
<br clear="all">Regards,<br>John<br>07894 211434<br><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/5/8 Adam Sweet <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:adam@adamsweet.org">adam@adamsweet.org</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">John Rose wrote:<br>
> Kevan,<br>
><br>
> I don't intend to use the usb drive with Windows: even if Id id I would<br>
> use the extfs plugin on a Windows PC. At first, I formatted the usb<br>
> drive as ext3, but I ran into permissions problems re copying files<br>
> (using cp) from /home to it. This seemed to be due to gconf-editor<br>
> system/storage options. So I reformatted it as FAT32. I'll try again<br>
> reformatting it as ext2.<br>
<br>
</div>Ext3 is Ext2 with added journalling, so that if the power goes out then<br>
your machine can work what was happening at the time the power went and<br>
roll back to the last consistent state. In general, this will mean<br>
losing any files which were partially written at the time of the power<br>
out. The permission structure will be the same under ext2 and 3, so you<br>
will need to get it right. I never had any problems backing up and<br>
restoring files to and from an ext3 USB disk, so you should be fine<br>
moving the files around provided they are owned by the same user and<br>
group IDs on each device.<br>
<br>
If your user was the first real user (ie not the root user) added to the<br>
system during installation you would be assigned uid and gid 500. If you<br>
copy your files to the USB disk, reinstall your machine and this time<br>
your own user is the second real user added to system you will end up<br>
with uid and groupid 501, at that point you would hit permission<br>
problems because the files are owned by the user with uid and gid 500.<br>
In a worst case scenario, you should just be able to chown them to which<br>
ever user you want using sudo and you should be fine. That said, if<br>
something weird is going on with HAL/gvfs then you might get the<br>
problems you describe. Not sure how to help you there, but you could<br>
statically mount the disk the old fashioned way with mount.<br>
<br>
FAT32 is horrible and won't preserve any file permissions, not really<br>
what you want when restoring your files, use ext2/3 if you can.<br>
<br>
Ad<br>
<br>
><br>
> Regards,<br>
> John<br>
> 07894 211434<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> 2009/5/8 Kevanf1 <<a href="mailto:kevanf1@gmail.com">kevanf1@gmail.com</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:kevanf1@gmail.com">kevanf1@gmail.com</a>>><br>
<div class="im">><br>
> 2009/5/8 John Rose <<a href="mailto:john.aaron.rose@googlemail.com">john.aaron.rose@googlemail.com</a><br>
</div>> <mailto:<a href="mailto:john.aaron.rose@googlemail.com">john.aaron.rose@googlemail.com</a>>>:<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5">> > The disk used on my laptop is approximately 40GB. I want to back<br>
> it up to a<br>
> > usb 1TB drive, formatted as FAT32 (which also contains films as<br>
> they're too<br>
> > big for my laptop's disk). As I understand it, the max file size<br>
> on a FAT32<br>
> > device is 4GB. I don't see any option in gzip to split large<br>
> resultant gzip<br>
> > files. The best option seems to me to be to use Partimage, which<br>
> allows<br>
> > resultant split files.<br>
> ><br>
> > So my thoughts are:<br>
> > to backup the laptop disk partition (only one partition n the<br>
> disk) to the<br>
> > usb drive monthly, using th split files option,<br>
> > to backup the /home directory to the usb drive monthly and occasional<br>
> > incremental using Simple Backup,<br>
> > possibly to separate the /home directory into a separate partition.<br>
> ><br>
> > Is the above the best way to go?<br>
> ><br>
> > Regards,<br>
> > John<br>
> > 07894 211434<br>
> ><br>
><br>
> Hi John. Now, I'll state right away I have not used this system that<br>
> I'm about to describe.<br>
><br>
> Are you using FAT32 because you need to use the 1TB drive with<br>
> Windows? If so, you have another option that will allow bigger file<br>
> sizes than 4gb. I believe you can use ext2 as the filesystem with a<br>
> plug in for Windows so that it can read it. I don't know what the<br>
> file size limit is for ext2 but I'm sure it's a lot bigger than 4gb.<br>
> Would this help? FAT32 is also very wasteful of space so you'd<br>
> utilise that drive far more efficiently.<br>
> --<br>
> ==============================================<br>
><br>
> Kevan Farmer<br>
> Linux user #373362<br>
> Staffordshire<br>
><br>
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