Hello everyone -- Mr. James W. Laferriere has kindly helped me to unravel the method for tar backups to floppy disks. The following command line is the one I've taken from his suggestions with my own directory selections added (/proc and empty directories are omitted):
tar --multi-volume --label="Full_Backup_DATE" --create --preserve-permissions --file=/dev/fd0 /bin /dev /etc /home /lib /root /sbin /usr /var (All of the above command is on one continuous line.) Archival floppy disks do not require mke2fs run on them -- just fdformat. These backup floppies should be tested with badblock to be certain that they're error free. To view the results of the backup, the following command is used, beginning with the first floppy disk archive: tar --multi-volume -tv --file=/dev/fd0 The results can be piped to a file and reviewed, if desired. The archived floppies cannot be mounted or viewed with ls, however. To restore the archive, one must be careful to return to the appropriate directory before execution of the command. The command is the same as the backup command, except that -create is replaced with -extract. In the example above, I would execute the command within the '/' directory. The tar program used has been GNU-tar 1.12, downloaded for use with BasicLinux and is identical to that used in Slackware 3.5. I plan to make more frequent backups of special files with gzip onto floppy disks with the mke2fs file system added, and I'll use tar on those gzipped files if they require multiple floppy disks. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
