[techtalk] Re: Write down while you are modifying the system... (was: [techtalk] New here)

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Sun, Apr 29, 2001 at 02:00:36PM +0100 or thereabouts, James Sutherland wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Apr 2001, Karl-Heinz Zimmer wrote:
> 
> > On Sunday 29 April 2001 12:49, Sandrine Burriel wrote:
> > ..
> > > I'm
> > ..
> > > using linux occasionnally (because I'm mostly required to work
> > > on windows...) but willing to learn.  I'm supposed to trade my
> > > old Mandrake 7.1 this week for a slackware or deb, still not
> > > sure... If you want to give me some advice, feel free to do so !
> >
> > My advise is just one little phrase:
> >
> >    Keep track of any changes you are making to the default configuration!

Agreed. In two places: 

- When you edit a config file, comment things out instead of deleting
them and stick the date in, then put the new thing in. This is great
six months later when you want to revert it, and equally great when
you can't quite get the suntax right: is it "command -options more stuff",
"command -option -option more stuff", "command -options morestuff" etc? 
If you write down what you tried that didn't work, it saves time in the
"did I try this?" stakes.

- Also, keep a note of some things _off_ the computer, for when
disaster strikes. Things like which serial port the mouse is on.
 
> Absolutely! Ideally, of course, you'd keep all your config files in a CVS
> tree and so be able to track every revision - yeah, right...
> 
> Has anyone here actually tried using something like CVS to track /etc??

I'm sure I was talking to someone who kept a lot of their configuration
files in CVS. I shall track them down and find out what exactly it was.

Telsa