2009/11/13 Peter Merchant <mercha...@onetel.com>: > > As a non-expert, I am wondering if you are using a sledge-hammer to > crack a nut by using tar. Is it not possible to copy sets of files > across to the memstick and thence to the new machine?
This sounds like a very good point. This thread started going down a 'I have a tar problem' q&a route rather than a 'I want to move A from here to there' question. I've come across this being called an "XY Problem" - We end up talking about how to do Y when you had the problem X. [ http://perlmonks.org/?node=xy+problem : the tone may appear a bit 'snooty' I'm afraid ] So, backing off: do you even need the mem stick? Can the two machines see each other over a network? If so, then rsync should be enough: cl...@box1 $ rsync -avzP /home/clive box2:/home/ this will try to make a ssh connection from box1 to box2 as the user 'clive' and if successful will copy the whole of /home/clive over into /home on box2 on the first occasion it is run. Later runs will copy only files on box1 that are newer than their instance on box2. -a: preserve file user & permissions -v : verbose -z: compress data in transit (and uncompress at other end. Tradeoff processing time vs network volume. ymmv) -P give percentage progresss stats per file *Take care with the arguments. first arg is what to send. If you give a *folder (directory) name, e.g. /home/clive _without_ the slash, then the 'clive' dir and all its contents will be transferred. If you give a folder name _with_ a slash then the _contents_ of clive, e.g. clive/file1, clive/file2, clive/dirA etc. will be copied over directly into the destination. If the destination is /home as above thent hat is probably not waht you want. rsync /home/clive box2:/home ... good rsync /home/clive/ box2:/home ... bad. rsync /home/clive/ box2:/home/clive ... good rsync /home/clive/* box2:/home/clive ... good .. equivalent to the above. If this can be done, great. It avoids all those issues about permissions, file systems, hidden .trash folders (eurgh) and flash wearout! OTOH if the two boxes can only be connected by stickNet then similar rsync commands could be used to send the desired directory to & from the USB stick. This is probably a bit more user friendly and transparent that using tar. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Wednesday 2009-12-02 20:00 Dorset LUG: http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.org&channel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
