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#1 2008-02-12 14:50:14

wuischke
Member
From: Suisse Romande
Registered: 2007-01-06
Posts: 630

What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

Hi,

I broke my system today. (Recompiled klibc against 2.6.24 to get uvesafb working, system could not boot with the new initrds) I was able to fix it by downloading + burning the arch64 install iso, chrooting in, reinstalling the original klibc package and recreating the images - at least the fallback image would work in this case.

If it wasn't for the Fedora test installation, I would have been in big trouble, because I have only that single PC here. OK, I have OpenBSD and Vista installed, but what if I accidentally overwrote my MBR or sth. like that?

I imagine many of your are fiddling with your system as well. What are you doing to keep it from breaking?

Do you have Emergency-Live-CDs? I use jfs - which Live CD would you recommend me?
Duplicate Arch installs? Does this make sense? (I have plenty of free space on my internal hdd.)
Multiple kernels? I've installed the mm-kernel from unstable as this was the only alternative kernel I could find. I'm too lazy/busy to maintain my own kernels these days...
Anything else?

[I do regular back-ups, so I'm more afraid of not being able to use my system for a while than of losing data in the worst case.]

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#2 2008-02-12 15:12:26

buttons
Member
From: NJ, USA
Registered: 2007-08-04
Posts: 620

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

On the same PC I have an old linux installation I can use (a pain) or I have a laptop I can ssh with (yay!)

Both are quicker to use than a boot cd, and fulfill different roles.  The once-in-a-blue-moon need for the separate linux installation (ie, I can't boot) is enough for me to leave it on there, instead of scrapping it and installing OSX instead.


Cthulhu For President!

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#3 2008-02-12 15:15:49

.:B:.
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 5,819
Website

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

Arch install CDs make for good live CDs tongue. I used them yesterday to fix my (normally headless) server... Guess 2.6.23 + grsecurity + 2.6.23.16 patch don't work nicely together, system kept booting, then sudden a reboot, infinite loop... Root is on RAID 1 and /home on an encrypted RAID 5 which makes it even trickier, but I fixed it tongue.


Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

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#4 2008-02-12 15:24:54

barebones
Member
Registered: 2006-04-30
Posts: 235

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

Since I have Arch 64 and I couldn't find a 64 bit live cd that I liked, I did a fresh install of arch on a 1 GB flash drive. It doesn't have a GUI on it, but it has everything else. This ensures that I can still use my cdrom if I need to when I'm fixing things, and It also has every tool that I need (because I installed them) and if I don't have the tool I can get it easily (via pacman).

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#5 2008-02-12 16:25:27

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

Live CD....FaunOS fortytwo on USB flash has archlinux in root  as well as Faunos in guest mode.  Over 500 packages.......................Requires for best use 2GB flash drive.......


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#6 2008-02-12 17:49:12

wuischke
Member
From: Suisse Romande
Registered: 2007-01-06
Posts: 630

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

Mh...looks like I should get myself a flash drive then...geez, I'm getting old...;)

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#7 2008-02-12 19:42:02

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

I'm 82 and counting.................


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#8 2008-02-12 20:16:56

LTSmash
Member
From: Aguascalientes - Mexico
Registered: 2008-01-02
Posts: 348
Website

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

lilsirecho wrote:

I'm 82 and counting.................

Really?


Proud Ex-Arch user.
Still an ArchLinux lover though.

Currently on Kubuntu 9.10

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#9 2008-02-12 23:01:44

exiguous
Member
Registered: 2007-11-11
Posts: 44

Re: What do you do to recover your system after breaking it?

I have used the Arch ftp installer CD as a rescue system. Works well and doesn't take long to boot. wink

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