System Restore

Alan McKinnon alan at linuxholdings.co.za
Fri Apr 28 15:16:20 UTC 2006


On Friday 28 April 2006 14:35, Scott wrote:
> Peter Clutton wrote:

> > System restore is really only needed because the Windows registry
> > gets so messed up you need to roll back. In ubuntu programs can
> > be fully uninstalled and config files set back to  how they were,
> > so there's not much need. Keeping regular backups and backing up
> > config files whenever you change them will accomplish the same
> > thing
>
> But but but.. GNOME has a "registry"....
>
> It's goes by the name of "GConf". :-)

Ah, but that's not a very good parallel, unless you define a registry 
as "a centralized place to store and retrieve configuration 
information".

If I look into ~/.gconf I find a collection of human readable XML 
files, all in the same place using a consistent format. Not too 
different from /etc/ which has a collection of human readable text 
files, all in the same place using mostly different formats. I can 
back them up and restore them nicely whenever I want. I can even 
break and fix them at will.

If I look into my Windows registry I find... no wait, let's not go 
there. I still have the headache from the last time I tried that.

Windows needs a system restore because  as has been shown time and 
time again, the OS will self-destruct it's registry from a cron job 
that no-one knows about. Linux doesn't need a system restore the same 
way I'll don't need to restore my fingers onto the end of my hands 
(note that I never wake up in the mornings to find my fingers where 
my toes used to be).

To the original poster: the tool you want is called a backup.

-- 
If only you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five




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