[Techtalk] backing up to vfat

Miriam English mim at miriam-english.org
Mon Nov 30 20:12:30 UTC 2015


Wow! Thanks for the replies. Looks like I'll use rsync instead.

Thanks James, it hadn't occurred to me that the filing systems might 
have different time resolutions. And thanks for the suggestion of rsync 
and reducing its time resolution. I didn't know rsync could do that. 
Great solution.

Thanks Akkana, for the suggestion of rsync and the idea of restricting 
it to size changes. Because I use these kinds of backups mostly for 
writing it is unlikely that two files the same sizes are different. It 
does happen, for instance if I find a number of letter reversals (teh 
instead of the, adn instead of and) and where I've typed the wrong 
letter (id instead of is), but on the whole, most changed files have 
more extensive alterations as I'm an inveterate fiddler, so that would work.

A. Mani, thanks for the answer, but I'm not sure what you mean. Do you 
mean that the drive is mounted as root but tests done as user? If so, 
that doesn't apply to Puppy Linux. It is a single-user linux where the 
user runs as root.

For those horrified at that as a security risk, Puppy has almost no 
servers running (unless explicitly started), and has the option to run 
internet applications as a low privilege user. There was a long 
discussion about security on the Puppy forums and the conclusion was 
reached that it is virtually impossible to break into, but that even if 
someone did, what we care most about is our data which is exactly what 
is at risk in any Linux. Puppy can be installed in just a few minutes 
(unlike most OSes), or even be run from CD (which makes its OS totally 
safe). The advantages in freeing up use of the machine by operating as 
root outweigh, in my opinion, the (unconvincing) security concerns. 
(Though if anybody has compelling evidence to the contrary, I'm open to it.)

Cheers,

	- Miriam
-- 
If you don't have any failures then you're not trying hard enough.
  - Dr. Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
-----
Website: http://miriam-english.org
Blogs:   http://miriam-e.dreamwidth.org
          http://miriam-e.livejournal.com





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