backups, file systems, media

[John Sowden]

On 01/12/2015 10:25 PM, Marius Gedminas wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 09:02:05PM -0800, John Sowden wrote:
>> ubuntu 13.10 on sda7, 14.10 on sda5, 13.10 works.  I want to move my
>> home directory (sep partition) to an off line media.  I tried a usb
>> stick  and had problems (invalid files, etc.) and I realized that
>> the usb stick is hosting a fat32 file system, which does not support
>> permissions, and I don't know what else.
>>
>> I have dvd-ram media, but I understand that the ext file systems are
>> not good for dvd-ram, as it reads/writes too much to a certain spot,
>> wearing out the media.
>>
>> How do I easily move my data off so I can install a new HD (2TB), 6
>> GB and virtual machine next, and put the data back, after installing
>> 14.10 from the bare metal up.
> You can reformat the USB stick as an ext4 filesystem.
>
> Or you can archive your home directory in a .tar.gz archive and put it
> on the FAT32 filesystem as a single file (assuming it fits under 2 GB or
> whatever the file size limit of FAT32 is).
>
> Marius Gedminas
you've opened a couple of avenues that I had not considered.  I've only 
used zip (dos).  I'll review the tar issue to gain some trust. maybe 
both will do the job.

thanks,
John