[conspire] Utility to rescue formatted EXT3 partition & distribution, choice?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Eric De Mund (ead-conspire at ixian.com):

> <Eric's standard Unison plug>
> I can't recommend rsync(1), at least when unison(1) is available....


Rick's Standard Quotation of Mark Pilgrim's Standard Rejoinder to
Standard Unison Plugs:

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/06/26/essentials-2006 

  [...]
  18.  rsync [link], for backups [link] (over Gigabit ethernet, w00t!) 
  You do have backups, right?  rsync -avz, baby.  Yes, I know about 
  Unison.  Shut the fuck up about Unison!  I tried it!  I don't like it! 
  It's okay that you do!  It's a big world!  We can both co-exist!


_Linux Gazette_ Regular Kapil Hari Paranjape's Standard Rejoinder to 
Standard Unison Plugs:

  You should be aware of some of the issues that "unison" has
  with USB drives. (see http://bugs.debian.org/349674) 


_Linux Gazette_ Editor-in-Chief Ben Okopnik's Standard Rejoinder to 
Standard Unison Plugs:

  I recall hearing about Unison a while back; exploring the above URL
  now gives me the impression that it doesn't do what the article 
  [RM: a _Gazette_ article about backup using rsync] proposes - i.e., 
  sync between an HD and a pen drive. Instead, it appears to require 
  two active hosts, at least according to the description at the
  site:

     It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to
     be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host),
     modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the
     changes in each replica to the other.

  and further on:

     Unison works between any pair of machines connected to the internet,
     communicating over either a direct socket link or tunneling over an
     encrypted ssh connection. It is careful with network bandwidth, and
     runs well over slow links such as PPP connections. Transfers of
     small updates to large files are optimized using a compression
      protocol similar to rsync.  ''

   Unison's site also says:

      These binaries depend on glibc 2.3.  The gtk2 UI binaries 
      additionally depend on GTK+ 2.

   I just downloaded the (rather large) binary and manual and have tried
   to compile it... oops, it also requires installing OCaml and 'etags'
   for compilation, and LablGtk along with GTK+ 2 if you want a GUI -
   and OCaml alone is 38MB. I think I'll skip all of that; experimenting
   with it sounds like a major pain. Given Gerrit's script - 23kB
   including comments, nothing to compile, using what most people
   already have on their systems, *and* cross-platform as well - your
   question appears to have answered itself.  :)


_Linux Gazette_ Contributing Editor Rick Moen's Snarky and
Custom-Composed Conclusion:

So, an overengineered, ponderous, and less-flexible tool in place 
of an elegant, highly compact, and time-proven one -- for no compelling
benefit?  No, I really _really_ don't think so.