System Restore

[Eric S. Johansson]

Martin J Hooper wrote:
> Eric S. Johansson wrote:
> 
>> I propose separating the base system and the site-specific 
>> modifications into two separate regions.  The base OS plus any changes 
>> to the base (security, bug fixes etc.) go into the base region.  Any 
>> site-specific changes such as applications or configuration changes go 
>> into the site-specific region. The two regions are merged dynamically 
>> (unionfs?) such that anything in the site-specific region is dominant 
>> and supersedes anything in the base region. making changes to files or 
>> directories should be automatically placed in the site-specific region.
> 
> 
> I was just thinking about partitioning being something along these lines.
> 
> I have a root and a home partition - Wouldn't it be easier as well to 
> have a small etc partition too.  Then if you needed to reinstall the OS 
> you would just tell the installer to mount without formatting.
> 
> Or would that not work??
> 
> 
it's only the first step.  For example if you have two partitions 
site-etc and base-etc, you need some form of a file system overlay to 
dynamically merge site-etc and base-etc such that if the file is present 
in site-etc, it will take primary over the version in base-etc.  If you 
edit a file which comes from base-etc and save the changes, the changes 
will be saved in site-etc.

At the same time you want to be able to have site-etc and base-etc 
accessible as separate file systems without the merging process getting 
away for purposes of backup.

Anyway, that's just a little more of the thoughts on the path.