re-installing Debian

re-installing Debian

[Glenn at home]

First of all, I wanted to mention here that I was going through some of the 
messages I have saved since I first installed Debian, and it is wonderful 
how I have gotten so much help from this list, even though it seems that I 
still have a lot to learn.

I have been trying to fix my broken Debian since I really messed it up with 
a failed attempt at upgrading.
I did:
apt-get dist-upgrade
and now I get a kernel panic: attempt to kill init
and above that it reads:
modprobe error invalid line 237 in init.conf
or something like that.
And I have looked at line 237, and even tried remming it out, with # and it 
still does not work.

I know someone who was going to try and log on with SSH, but he cannot get 
through my router.
So it seems that that option is out.

So I was wondering if I can just re-install Debian without losing my files 
in /home/ftp/etc/pub?
Thanks for any ideas.
Glenn

Re: re-installing Debian

[Janina Sajka]

It depends, Glenn, on where your /home is.

In the Fedora installation HOWTO we recommend creating a separate
partition for /home exactly for this reason.

So, if you've done that, you simply don't reformat /home. If, on the
other hand, /home is simply a directory under / (or some other system
related partition), the answer is "no."

Glenn at home writes:
> First of all, I wanted to mention here that I was going through some of the 
> messages I have saved since I first installed Debian, and it is wonderful 
> how I have gotten so much help from this list, even though it seems that I 
> still have a lot to learn.
> 
> I have been trying to fix my broken Debian since I really messed it up with 
> a failed attempt at upgrading.
> I did:
> apt-get dist-upgrade
> and now I get a kernel panic: attempt to kill init
> and above that it reads:
> modprobe error invalid line 237 in init.conf
> or something like that.
> And I have looked at line 237, and even tried remming it out, with # and it 
> still does not work.
> 
> I know someone who was going to try and log on with SSH, but he cannot get 
> through my router.
> So it seems that that option is out.
> 
> So I was wondering if I can just re-install Debian without losing my files 
> in /home/ftp/etc/pub?
> Thanks for any ideas.
> Glenn
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.202.494.7040
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com

Chair, Accessibility Workgroup		Free Standards Group (FSG)
janina@freestandards.org		http://a11y.org

If Linux can't solve your computing problem, you need a different problem.

Re: re-installing Debian

[David Bruzos]

Hi Glenn:
The answer to your question is yes.  As long as you have a /home partition, then all you have to do is not format your 
/home partition when you install over.  Make sure that you have the partition by checking if the root partition (/) is  
different from your /home.  For example, your root might be something like /dev/hda2 and your /home might be something like 
/dev/hda4.  If both are the same, then you will have to use another method of backing up your files.  Use the "df" command 
to find out, or look in /etc/fstab.
If you can burn your stuff to CD, I definitly recommend you do that.  Sometimes a simple mistake can result in your HDD 
getting wiped out.  I just recently made one of those mistakes and load-leveled my root partition.  I was trying to repare 
an HD with bad blocks and I typed /dev/hda instead of /dev/hdc, it was late at night!  Good thing that all of 
my docs/music/movies/etc are on my server over NFS!  Oh well, I ended up reinstalling Gentoo instead of FC3 and I am very 
happy with it...

HTH

David B.

On Wed, May 04, 2005 at 10:54:31PM -0500, Glenn at home wrote:
> First of all, I wanted to mention here that I was going through some of the 
> messages I have saved since I first installed Debian, and it is wonderful 
> how I have gotten so much help from this list, even though it seems that I 
> still have a lot to learn.
> 
> I have been trying to fix my broken Debian since I really messed it up with 
> a failed attempt at upgrading.
> I did:
> apt-get dist-upgrade
> and now I get a kernel panic: attempt to kill init
> and above that it reads:
> modprobe error invalid line 237 in init.conf
> or something like that.
> And I have looked at line 237, and even tried remming it out, with # and it 
> still does not work.
> 
> I know someone who was going to try and log on with SSH, but he cannot get 
> through my router.
> So it seems that that option is out.
> 
> So I was wondering if I can just re-install Debian without losing my files 
> in /home/ftp/etc/pub?
> Thanks for any ideas.
> Glenn
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: re-installing Debian

[Glenn at home]

I chose the default partition setup when I installed Debian.
But I am sure it is on the same partition, because I just do
cd /home from /
and I am in home.
Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen review 
system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


It depends, Glenn, on where your /home is.

In the Fedora installation HOWTO we recommend creating a separate
partition for /home exactly for this reason.

So, if you've done that, you simply don't reformat /home. If, on the
other hand, /home is simply a directory under / (or some other system
related partition), the answer is "no."

Glenn at home writes:
> First of all, I wanted to mention here that I was going through some of 
> the
> messages I have saved since I first installed Debian, and it is wonderful
> how I have gotten so much help from this list, even though it seems that I
> still have a lot to learn.
>
> I have been trying to fix my broken Debian since I really messed it up 
> with
> a failed attempt at upgrading.
> I did:
> apt-get dist-upgrade
> and now I get a kernel panic: attempt to kill init
> and above that it reads:
> modprobe error invalid line 237 in init.conf
> or something like that.
> And I have looked at line 237, and even tried remming it out, with # and 
> it
> still does not work.
>
> I know someone who was going to try and log on with SSH, but he cannot get
> through my router.
> So it seems that that option is out.
>
> So I was wondering if I can just re-install Debian without losing my files
> in /home/ftp/etc/pub?
> Thanks for any ideas.
> Glenn
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka Phone: +1.202.494.7040
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com

Chair, Accessibility Workgroup Free Standards Group (FSG)
janina@freestandards.org http://a11y.org

If Linux can't solve your computing problem, you need a different problem.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: re-installing Debian

[Adam Myrow]

On Thu, 5 May 2005, Glenn at home wrote:

> But I am sure it is on the same partition, because I just do
> cd /home from /
> and I am in home.

That does not mean it's on the same partition.  That's the way Unix and 
Linux work.  All directories are mounted under /, no matter whether they 
are on a floppy, hard disk, MP3 player, CD ROM, DVD, etc.  The only way to 
be sure about whether /home is on another partition is to look at 
/etc/fstab, or do a "df" command without options.  If /home is on its own 
partition, it will be listed, along with its device, and how much space is 
used and free.  Or, if you do "df -h," you'll get the same information in 
a more readable format with sizes given in whatever unit is appropriate. 
For example, here is what my system looks like.  I have a dual boot system 
with Windows XP Professional, and Slackware 10.1.  I have a large 
"/backup" partition which I store system backups on before I burn them to 
DVD+RW.  Not surprisingly, Windows takes up way more space than Linux, 
even with lots of programs under /usr/local which I have compiled myself. 
I am considering splitting the /backup partition off, and moving 
/usr/local onto its own partition as well.  My hard drive is serial ATA, 
but for some reason, the kernel support for that is under SCSI, so it 
shows up as /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda.

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             7.8G  3.5G  4.0G  47% /
/dev/sda5             2.0G  532M  1.4G  28% /home
/dev/sda7              19G  2.0G   16G  11% /backup
/dev/sda2              83G   14G   70G  16% /windows

RE: re-installing Debian

[jim grimsby]

Hi,  before you do that reinstall then I hardily advice you to backup
your home directory.  
Hth 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Glenn at home
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 4:52 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


I chose the default partition setup when I installed Debian. But I am
sure it is on the same partition, because I just do cd /home from / and
I am in home. Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen
review 
system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


It depends, Glenn, on where your /home is.

In the Fedora installation HOWTO we recommend creating a separate
partition for /home exactly for this reason.

So, if you've done that, you simply don't reformat /home. If, on the
other hand, /home is simply a directory under / (or some other system
related partition), the answer is "no."

Glenn at home writes:
> First of all, I wanted to mention here that I was going through some 
> of
> the
> messages I have saved since I first installed Debian, and it is
wonderful
> how I have gotten so much help from this list, even though it seems
that I
> still have a lot to learn.
>
> I have been trying to fix my broken Debian since I really messed it up
> with
> a failed attempt at upgrading.
> I did:
> apt-get dist-upgrade
> and now I get a kernel panic: attempt to kill init
> and above that it reads:
> modprobe error invalid line 237 in init.conf
> or something like that.
> And I have looked at line 237, and even tried remming it out, with #
and 
> it
> still does not work.
>
> I know someone who was going to try and log on with SSH, but he cannot

> get through my router. So it seems that that option is out.
>
> So I was wondering if I can just re-install Debian without losing my 
> files in /home/ftp/etc/pub? Thanks for any ideas.
> Glenn
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca 
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka Phone: +1.202.494.7040
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com

Chair, Accessibility Workgroup Free Standards Group (FSG)
janina@freestandards.org http://a11y.org

If Linux can't solve your computing problem, you need a different
problem.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

RE: re-installing Debian

[jim grimsby]

Hi, well if he used the default means of setting up his drive then /home
is on the root file system.  
Hth 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Adam Myrow
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 5:08 PM
To: Glenn at home; Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


On Thu, 5 May 2005, Glenn at home wrote:

> But I am sure it is on the same partition, because I just do cd /home 
> from / and I am in home.

That does not mean it's on the same partition.  That's the way Unix and 
Linux work.  All directories are mounted under /, no matter whether they

are on a floppy, hard disk, MP3 player, CD ROM, DVD, etc.  The only way
to 
be sure about whether /home is on another partition is to look at 
/etc/fstab, or do a "df" command without options.  If /home is on its
own 
partition, it will be listed, along with its device, and how much space
is 
used and free.  Or, if you do "df -h," you'll get the same information
in 
a more readable format with sizes given in whatever unit is appropriate.

For example, here is what my system looks like.  I have a dual boot
system 
with Windows XP Professional, and Slackware 10.1.  I have a large 
"/backup" partition which I store system backups on before I burn them
to 
DVD+RW.  Not surprisingly, Windows takes up way more space than Linux,
even with lots of programs under /usr/local which I have compiled
myself. 
I am considering splitting the /backup partition off, and moving 
/usr/local onto its own partition as well.  My hard drive is serial ATA,

but for some reason, the kernel support for that is under SCSI, so it 
shows up as /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda.

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             7.8G  3.5G  4.0G  47% /
/dev/sda5             2.0G  532M  1.4G  28% /home
/dev/sda7              19G  2.0G   16G  11% /backup
/dev/sda2              83G   14G   70G  16% /windows

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: re-installing Debian

[Janina Sajka]

jim grimsby writes:
> Hi, well if he used the default means of setting up his drive then /home
> is on the root file system.  

Yes, precisely. Which is why this is such an important question now.

Most people seem to take the easy way out, until they learn, sometimes
the hard way, that taking a little more consideration for future needs
is wiser.

Re: re-installing Debian

[Glenn at home]

Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is 
already there?
Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


jim grimsby writes:
> Hi, well if he used the default means of setting up his drive then /home
> is on the root file system.

Yes, precisely. Which is why this is such an important question now.

Most people seem to take the easy way out, until they learn, sometimes
the hard way, that taking a little more consideration for future needs
is wiser.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: re-installing Debian

[Janina Sajka]

Glenn at home writes:
> Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is 
> already there?

Possible, yes.

Advisable? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you have free space, or an existing partition you aren't using and
don't need any longer, then absolutely. Do it. If you have to resize, I
would be leary.

Re: re-installing Debian

[Glenn at home]

I guess it depends on what you mean by free space.
I partitioned the entire 27 gig when I installed, and left no space 
unformatted.
It seems that the last time I looked at my drive with:
df /dev/hda1
it reads that I have either used or have 46% there to use.
Either way, I am sure that more than 4% is used by the system files, so I 
think I have enough room to make a partition if that is possible.
Glenn



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen review 
system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


Glenn at home writes:
> Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is
> already there?

Possible, yes.

Advisable? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you have free space, or an existing partition you aren't using and
don't need any longer, then absolutely. Do it. If you have to resize, I
would be leary.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: re-installing Debian

[Glenn at home]

Would it be better to make my new partition a primary partition, or an 
extended one, since this will be /home.
And, can I get away with naming it home?  If I do, what will happen when I 
re-install, and it sees a partition called home?
Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen review 
system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


Glenn at home writes:
> Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is
> already there?

Possible, yes.

Advisable? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you have free space, or an existing partition you aren't using and
don't need any longer, then absolutely. Do it. If you have to resize, I
would be leary.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: re-installing Debian

[Janina Sajka]

Enough room, yes. But you would be resizing an existing partition that
has data you specifically don't want to lose. You wouldn't want to make
a mistake with that.

Instead, why not tar and bunzip your /home and copy it off somewhere. Do
you have another machine you could copy such a file to?

You could do something like this:

cd /home

tar cjpf home_files.tbz *

Then, go to bed, because this could take awhile. In the morning you will
be able to:

ls -l home_files.tbz

and you'll know approx how much room they'll take on another machine.

CAUTION: If you also need to preserve mail, web pages, and ftp, you may
need to copy those from /var, if they're not already copied, symlink'd,
or otherwise backed up.

Glenn at home writes:
> I guess it depends on what you mean by free space.
> I partitioned the entire 27 gig when I installed, and left no space 
> unformatted.
> It seems that the last time I looked at my drive with:
> df /dev/hda1
> it reads that I have either used or have 46% there to use.
> Either way, I am sure that more than 4% is used by the system files, so I 
> think I have enough room to make a partition if that is possible.
> Glenn
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
> To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen review 
> system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:50 PM
> Subject: Re: re-installing Debian
> 
> 
> Glenn at home writes:
> > Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is
> > already there?
> 
> Possible, yes.
> 
> Advisable? Maybe. Maybe not.
> 
> If you have free space, or an existing partition you aren't using and
> don't need any longer, then absolutely. Do it. If you have to resize, I
> would be leary.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.202.494.7040
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com

Chair, Accessibility Workgroup		Free Standards Group (FSG)
janina@freestandards.org		http://a11y.org

If Linux can't solve your computing problem, you need a different problem.

Re: re-installing Debian

[Janina Sajka]

Glenn at home writes:
> Would it be better to make my new partition a primary partition, or an 
> extended one, since this will be /home.


Matters not. Let your system decide.

> And, can I get away with naming it home?  If I do, what will happen when I 
> re-install, and it sees a partition called home?


OK. You said you're going to reinstall Debian. I don't recall how Debian
treats that. I would suspect it won't have a label for it though, and
you'll have to supply the label. I suspect it will just give you a list
of partitions for you to specify both whether you want each partition
formatted, and what label you wish for each partition. The list would be
something like:

/dev/hda1
/dev/hda2
/dev/hda3

depending on how many partitions, how many disks, what type of disks,
etc.

> Glenn
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
> To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen review 
> system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:50 PM
> Subject: Re: re-installing Debian
> 
> 
> Glenn at home writes:
> > Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is
> > already there?
> 
> Possible, yes.
> 
> Advisable? Maybe. Maybe not.
> 
> If you have free space, or an existing partition you aren't using and
> don't need any longer, then absolutely. Do it. If you have to resize, I
> would be leary.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.202.494.7040
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com

Chair, Accessibility Workgroup		Free Standards Group (FSG)
janina@freestandards.org		http://a11y.org

If Linux can't solve your computing problem, you need a different problem.

RE: re-installing Debian

[jim grimsby]

Hi, 
Yes of course the easiest way to do this if you have another drive handy
you can set it up install debian on it and then get your stuff off your
old drive.  
Then format it and use it as a secondary drive. 
Hth 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Glenn at home
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 5:36 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what is

already there?
Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux."
<speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


jim grimsby writes:
> Hi, well if he used the default means of setting up his drive then 
> /home is on the root file system.

Yes, precisely. Which is why this is such an important question now.

Most people seem to take the easy way out, until they learn, sometimes
the hard way, that taking a little more consideration for future needs
is wiser.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

RE: re-installing Debian

[jim grimsby]

That is resizing.



-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Glenn at home
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 6:06 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


I guess it depends on what you mean by free space.
I partitioned the entire 27 gig when I installed, and left no space 
unformatted.
It seems that the last time I looked at my drive with:
df /dev/hda1
it reads that I have either used or have 46% there to use. Either way, I
am sure that more than 4% is used by the system files, so I 
think I have enough room to make a partition if that is possible. Glenn



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
To: "Glenn at home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>; "Speakup is a screen
review 
system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: re-installing Debian


Glenn at home writes:
> Is it possible for me to add a partition now, without wiping out what 
> is already there?

Possible, yes.

Advisable? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you have free space, or an existing partition you aren't using and
don't need any longer, then absolutely. Do it. If you have to resize, I
would be leary.


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 


_______________________________________________
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