[sf-lug] seeking update advice

[jim]

    Those __were__ a bunch of good responses, huh? 
    I've added yours to the rest and am working to 
figure out how to present a summary or some other 
form of digestion. 


On Mon, 2013-03-18 at 11:03 -0700, Michael Paoli wrote:
> Trying not to be too redundant with excellent points made (and questions
> raised) from this "thread", my additions in-line:
> 
> > Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:47:25 -0700
> > From: jim <jim at systemateka.com>
> > Subject: [sf-lug] seeking update advice
> >
> >     I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 on an Atom-based laptop.
> > Support lapses sometime before May of 2013. I like
> > support.
> 
> Support - especially security support, is a *good thing*!  :-)
> 
> >     I don't upgrade. I backup all files except OS files,
> > then wipe the drive, then reinstall a new OS from some
> > external media, then copy my files from backup to
> > whatever partitions I've dreamed up this time.
> 
> A perfectly valid "upgrade" approach.  Has its advantages and
> disadvantages.  Also, the relative pros/cons also vary among operating
> systems and distributions.  Some are exceedingly excellent at upgrades
> (e.g. preserving most or all user and system settings and data, while
> well merging with updated configurations), some exceedingly suck at it
> (e.g. generally result in a broken system and back line professional
> engineering services spending more than a day trying to fix their mess
> from following their documented upgrade procedures) ... but most fall
> somewhere between those extremes.  Regardless, there are inherent
> advantages and disadvantages to each approach.
> 
> > and Knoppix 7.0.5; I want to get hard media for each.
> >
> > QUESTIONS:
> 
> > * What are your recommendations for getting each distro
> >   on physical media (CD or DVD or USB stick)? I don't
> >   like downloading ISOs--my experience includes problems,
> >   primarily with corrupt images. I like paying money to
> >   support the development communities.
> 
> Get thee to a (e.g. BALUG) meeting ;-)  I may not have 'em burnt, but I
> have *lots* of ISO images - and the files to verify them (and yes, I've
> verified them).  Bring USB "thumb" drive or the like with suitable
> available space, and I can not only give you copy of the ISOs, but,
> right along with 'em, all the files needed to verify the images again.
> See:
> http://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
> E.g. just some of files I've got:
> $ find KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN* ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-* -type f \
> > -print | sort
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.verified/0x0E573DA0F13969EF1DD5ACAA3798E3D757E37087.asc
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.verified/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.md5
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.verified/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.md5.asc
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.verified/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.sha1
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.verified/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.sha1.asc
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.verified/verified
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.md5
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.md5.asc
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.sha1
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN.iso.sha1.asc
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/dpkg-l-cd-705.txt
> KNOPPIX_V7.0.5CD-2012-12-21-EN/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/0xC5986B4F1257FFA86632CBA746181433FBB75451.asc
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/MD5SUMS
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/MD5SUMS-metalink
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/MD5SUMS-metalink.gpg
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/MD5SUMS.gpg
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/SHA1SUMS
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/SHA1SUMS.gpg
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/SHA256SUMS
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/SHA256SUMS.gpg
> ubuntu-12.04.2-desktop-i386.iso.verified/verified
> 
> If I've got suitable optical media, I can "burn" 'em if I don't have 'em
> already burned - certainly CDs, anyway.  DVDs I'm not 100% sure about
> quite yet - think I've only burned 3 so far, and don't think I've quite
> nailed down the process to the point I'm >99.5% satisfied with and
> confident in the results.
> 
> And nothing prevents one from donating to one's favorite
> distribution(s)/organization(s)/cause(s) if one obtains that same data
> by means other than purchasing media in a manner that contributes back
> to the distribution.  Besides, how much write-once not-so-recyclable
> media do we need to have manufactured and purchase?  That's also a key
> reason I'm not "burning" much DVD/CD-R in advance of specific
> requests/needs - trying to reduce the waste (also trying to reduce
> volume of media I schlep to most meetings).
> 
> >     The complex, uber-smart, potentially hair-pulling
> >   way is to install each such that they use the same
> >   directories such as /var/ and /usr/ and /lib/ and
> 
> Others have well made the point too.  But I wouldn't share filesystems
> across distributions like that.  Only areas I might consider sharing
> would possibly be /boot (but as each tries to play "top dog", that could
> frequently be hazardous/messy/disastrous) - but if, in case of only
> Ubuntu + Knoppix, if one relatively rarely "updates" Knoppix, and only
> does that quite carefully and manually, that might be fairly workable.
> But even in such a case, may be simpler, and safer, to have Knoppix
> first use its own separate /boot filesystem - and then manually and
> carefully move/copy/merge things over.
> /usr/local is another I'd consider sharing - certainly for architecture
> independent stuff, and, presuming architectures of OSes match (and
> hardware also - in this case it inherently does), then probably
> generally okay to also share binaries (executables, etc.).  However that
> still may not work 100% - e.g. due to differences in libraries provided
> (and not provided) by the different OSes.
> And I wouldn't share /home, but possibly sharing some subdirectory of
> ordinary user's HOME directory *might* be okay.  In theory user having
> same home directory across Unix-like operating systems *should* be okay,
> unfortunately reality is often not well matched to that theory.  (Once
> upon a time, when it was much more common to have user's HOME directory
> (auto) NFS mounted on various Unix-like hosts, they often "played
> together" nicer in that regard.  Now with a more often "everybody's got
> their own host machine", all too often sharing a common HOME doesn't
> play as well together as it ought to.)
> May be highly feasible to share some quite select application data
> filesystem(s), e.g. /var/local or filesystem below that point or similar
> local equivalent.  But again, no guarantees - really quite depends what
> you've got there.