Tag: linux

Get root access:

sudo su

To backup:

tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

To restore:

tar xvpfz backup.tgz -C /

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087

To backup on an other mount:

tar cvpzf /mnt/data/backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

1. Use the Ubuntu “alternate installer” disc
2. At the start menu press F4 and select “Install a commande-line system”
   
3. Complete the installation process
4. After add the gnome-core package and gdm:

   aptitude install gnome-core gdm

Voilà!

I am now installing Ubuntu without a swap partition and I use a swap file afterward.

Here’s the details from Ubuntu Swap FAQ:

Should I reinstall with more swap?

• Definitely no.
• With the 2.6 kernel, “a swap file is just as fast as a swap partition.”(Wikipedia:Paging, LKML).

How do I add more swap?

• Usually, people associate swap with a swap partition, maybe because they’ve been proposed to create a swap partition on install. In fact any file can be used as a swapping device, be it a partition or a conventional file. If you’re considering responsiveness, my advice: add more RAM. Swapping to a partition or a file won’t change anything.
• We will add more swap by adding a swap file.
• Adding more swap is a four-step process :
  • a- Creating a file the size you want.
  • b- Formatting that file to create a swapping device.
  • c- Adding the swap to the running system.
  • d- Making the change permanent.
• We will consider (as an example) a 512 M swap need.
• a- Creating a file the size you want :
  • We will create a /mnt/512M.swap swap file.

    sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/512M.swap bs=1M count=512

    • What is important here is count=512, which means we want our file to contain 512 blocks of bs=1M, which means block size = 1 MegaBytes.
    • Be careful *not* to do this dd of=/mnt/512M.swap bs=1M seek=512 count=0
      Though the file grows to 512M immediately,it will have holes that makes it unusable.
• b- Formatting that file to create a swapping device :

  sudo mkswap /mnt/512M.swap

• c- Adding the swap to the running system :

  sudo swapon /mnt/512M.swap

  • You can see with “cat /proc/meminfo” that your additionnal swap is now available.
• d- Making the change permanent :
  • edit your /etc/fstab:

    gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

  • and add this line at the end of the file:

    /mnt/512M.swap  none  swap  sw  0 0

  • save and reboot

Ref: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq