[Bradford] Linux Help Please!

[David Bolton]

Thanks again.

Haven't been able to do any more tonight (was packing for an overnight 
work trip tomorrow, so won't be able to do any more until late Tuesday)

I actually tried setting up a partition when I initially set up the 
machine - but unfamiliarity with Linux install meant I ended up with one 
big lump! ;-) I'd always back up to external drives, anyway.   I'm still 
a newbie when it comes to messing around with the OS - although I'm 
familiar with unix file and directory naming from the days when I used 
to use engineering software on workstations running hp-ux and solaris....

Cheers,

Dave


On 05/01/14 23:30, Brian A wrote:
> If you are able to install it, you could use 'Synaptic Package 
> Manager'. That is what we all had to use in the earlier days before 
> Ubuntu created the 'Software Centre', I still use it sometimes when 
> I'm doing something that's not so straight forward. Synaptic, being a 
> GUI,  does give you a good idea what packages are available and you 
> can do 'reinstalls' as well as adding & removing software and 
> repairing broken packages. The name of 'Synaptic' is 'synaptic-pkexec' 
> and, once installed, resides in /usr/bin/.
>
> Mint does use the Ubuntu repositories, as well as its own, but, as you 
> say, there is the Mint Debian edition. I think that is an insurance 
> policy lest they find it difficult to use Ubuntu at some time in the 
> future. Atm Canonical aren't happy about them using Ubuntu binaries 
> for things like the 'Mint Box'.
>
> Just remember, next time you do an install,  not go for the easy 
> install, but to put your Home directory, at least, on a separate 
> partition - this can all be taken care of during the install. Also, a 
> swap partition at least the size of RAM on your machine. If you do 
> that you won't have all this backing up to do as you'll just keep your 
> home directory when you do an reinstall.
>
> I don't know how much you know about the configuration files etc. but 
> there are what I call 'dot' directories in your home directory. You 
> can see them in the terminal by typing 'ls -la' or by typing 'Ctrl H' 
> in the Mint's Nemo file manager (fork of Nautilus). The directory 
> names are preceded by a '.' .If you backup these files you can return 
> them to a new install and have all your application preferences restored.
>
> Hopefully, that gives you a bit to go on with.
>
> Brian
>
>
>