Next LUG meet: 9 Nov 2003 around 4 pm - VJTI -------------------------------------------- On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 09:42:36AM +0530, Dr. Sharukh K. R. Pavri. wrote:
> Now, the hdd has developed bad sectors. As the hdd is still within the > warranty period, I have to return it to the vendor for testing which > will destroy all my data on the hdd. I have never tried doing this myself, but I do know that the Debian packaging system is so insanely sane, that you can indeed recreate your config on a new HDD ... only the package-specific preferences will need to be handled manually. > If I back up these .deb files, will I be able to reuse them after I > reinstall knoppix ? if so, how ? The files you are looking for reside in /var/cache/apt ... copy the contents onto some place on your new HDD, and then create a new entry in your sources.list I am not sure exactly how that works, but the sources.list manpage gives the basic idea. More information might be available on http://debianplanet.org/ BTW, its a good idea to use a weekly cron job to keep cleaning your cache, using "apt-get autoclean" > What other files do I need to backup ? In order to get the exact set of packages on your system use the command, "dpkg --get-selections" Again, more "info" in the manpage ;) You can reuse this later using "dpkg --set-selections" > I read somewhere that this is best done by installing just a base system > from woody and then upgrading the base system to testing or unstable. I > can't find this reference now so, any pointers are welcome. One way is to install from the Knoppix CD, then change the sources.list to unstable, follwed by "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade". I install Debian using a netinst CD image, with only the basedebs. Essentially, with such a CD, you install a base working Debian (stable) system on your hard-disk and when you boot for the first time, it asks you for more packages and mirrors to get them from. You might want to try the new debian-installer that released its first beta recently. The netinst CD's are available here: http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ I use David Kimdon's image - the one called bootbf2.4, which uses kernel 2.4 by default. The Debian Installer project lives here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ This seems more useful and I look forward to try it the next time we need to install Debian on a machine here! > I am a newbie to debian. It would be great if you help us all by recording your experiences in shifting to a new hard-disk, as a mini-HOWTO and contributing to the Debian newbiedoc project (Documentation by newbies, for newbies) ;) http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/ Sameer. -- Research Scholar, KReSIT, IIT Bombay http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~sameerds/ -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
