[sf-lug] external usb hard drive

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (a_kleider at yahoo.com):

> belmont:/home/alex# aptitude update
[...]
> Reading package lists... Done
> W: GPG error: http://www.backports.org etch-backports Release: The
> following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not
> available: NO_PUBKEY EA8E8B2116BA136C
> W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
> belmont:/home/alex# 

Um, first of all, it merely griped that it couldn't verify the release
key.  It didn't say anything about not doing what you requested.  I'm
pretty sure it _did_ do exactly what you requested -- except for the
kvetching bit.  Which is annoying, so it's worth fixing.

Second, I notice the file http://www.backports.org/debian/archive.key, 
which -- tada! -- appears to be what you need.  (I just looked at the top of
http://www.backports.org/debian/ on a hunch, and lo!  There it was.)
Fetch a copy of that, e.g., by doing

#  cd /tmp
#  wget http://www.backports.org/debian/archive.key

You're now going to want to import that into your system's "trusted
keys" GPG keyring (/etc/apt/trusted.gpg) using "apt-key".  So, for
comparison's sake, do "apt-key list" first.  Note what keys are in there
(just for your information.)

Now, do

#  apt-key add archive.key

Last, do

#  apt-key list

...to compare, and note that there's now one additional trusted key 
in the trusted-keys keyring.

> In view of Rick's advice, perhaps I'd better forget about trying to 
> get ntfs-3g running under the current Debian Stable (2.6.18 kernel)
> Changing the file system is another option for me to get the problem 
> solved.

Well, back in the days before cheap 500GB hard drives, the standard
answer used to be "Use FAT for multi-OS-compatibility partitions, old
chum, not NTFS."  However, a FAT filesystem bigger than, oh, about 1-2
GB would be not only hugely wasteful of disk space (enormous cluster
size), but also more than likely isn't even possible at all.

Me, I wouln't trust NTFS with my data on any operating system, so I'm
not sure how to advise you.  Maybe the idea of ext2 drivers for the
Win32 side has merit:  I have no experience with that.

But maybe you'd prefer to try a Debian testing/unstable system, instead.  
You want goodies; that's where they are!