[Sussex] partitions and the like ??

[John D.]

On Wed, 2004-12-29 at 20:58 +0000, John D. wrote:
<snip>
> So, I need to backup before anything else :-P ?
> 
> Actually there's nothing that I can't afford to loose if I screw up,
> just the inconvenience of re-applying the customisations etc, Ok that
> certainly sounds like extremely sensible advice.
> 
> With that in mind, if I read correctly, I can be root and then do the 
> 
> # cd /home
> # tar cvfz /home-backup.tar.gz
> 
> bits ? Plus as I don't follow all the stuff that is included in "man
> tar" does the cvfz /home-backup.tar.gz actually make the backup and
> place it in the root partition (presuming that I've read things
> correctly) ?
> 
</snip>

Ho hum, this linux lark is sometimes rather tiresome.

bash-2.05b# cd /home
bash-2.05b# tar cvfz /home-backup.tar.gz
tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive
Try `tar --help' for more information.
bash-2.05b# tar -cvfz /home-backup.tar.gz
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
tar: /home-backup.tar.gz: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
bash-2.05b#

I can't do that!, I haven't really got much of a clue as too how I'd
backup /home to cd anyway.

I seem to have cfdisk in the system:-


           cfdisk 2.12i

                              Disk Drive: /dev/hda
                       Size: 120000000000 bytes, 120.0 GB
             Heads: 255   Sectors per Track: 63   Cylinders: 14589

    Name        Flags      Part Type  FS Type          [Label]
Size (MB)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    hda1        Boot        Primary   NTFS             [^B]
21056.72
    hda2                    Primary   Linux ext3
1052.84
    hda3                    Primary   Linux swap / Solaris
1579.26
    hda5                    Logical   Linux ReiserFS
20974.47
    hda6                    Logical   Linux ReiserFS
75335.34

     [Bootable]  [ Delete ]  [  Help  ]  [Maximize]  [ Print  ]
     [  Quit  ]  [  Type  ]  [ Units  ]  [ Write  ]
                   

but I'm not sure why it's not showing the fact that I previously
"scrunched" up the /hda6 file system

bash-2.05b# df /home
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6             42111064   1395076  40715988   4% /home
bash-2.05b#

I checked on Rupert S's suggestion of QParted, but I get this

bash-2.05b# emerge QParted
Calculating dependencies
emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "QParted".

bash-2.05b#

I sort of realise that the inconvenience of re-installing all the stuff
that's in the /home so obviously need to follow the wisdom of Steve D
and John Crowhurst - but how ?

I seem to have confused myself well and truely! Cosmic!

regards

John D.

--