System restoration

[Kevin O'Connor]

Dan
A couple of things you might want to bear in mind.

It's extreamly difficult to completely trash the system, you can normally
recover by droping into single user mode and backing out your mistake. (Yes
this takes practice and familierarity with the OS)

Try not to run as root, yes I know it stops you doing lots of things but
that is the idea and you can still look.

If you have access to a separate HDD you might want to consider using
snapshots before you have a major play.

On the "It takes a long time to build"  Please remember that FreeBSD is
actually a server OS rather than a workstation and as such offers things
like X Windows as an addon. However you might want to take a look at
www.pcbsd.org which is more geared to desktops but is really FreeBSD 6 under
the bonnet and I have to say has actually convinced me that it is now
possible for the average Microsoft user to install and run FreeBSD as a
workstation.

If you do run into problems just post and someone here will be only to
pleased to help you out.

Kevin



> -----Original Message-----
> From: freebsd-users-admin at uk.freebsd.org 
> [mailto:freebsd-users-admin at uk.freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Dan Nicholls
> Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 9:56 PM
> To: freebsd-users at uk.freebsd.org
> Subject: System restoration
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Many thanks for the suggestions of various books. I will get 
> round to ordering one soon...I know I could download it off 
> the net but as I said to someone earlier, I can't take my 
> laptop to the bath with me!
> 
> I've been playing with FreeBSD for a couple of days now and 
> have managed to get xfce up with a couple of apps, and one 
> thing I've noticed is that FreeBSD takes longer to set up 
> than Windows does (although it is worth it, my laptop has 
> never been quicker). But it did get me thinking about what 
> happens when the system goes down...like Windows frequently 
> did and required reinstallation.
> 
> Now I doubt FreeBSD with crash itself, but I can see me 
> messing something up along the way which will mean rebuilding 
> everything. I'll be moving house soon so I won't have an 
> internet connection for a few weeks and I'm reliant on the 
> net for downloading packages and so on...
> 
> ...soo if I do screw something up and everything goes down, 
> are there any easy ways to recover gracefully...without an 
> internet connection...?
> 
> Ta muchly,
> 
> Dan :-)
> 
> 
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