LinuxMCE snapshoting with btrfs, zfs, lvm... ?

[valent]

Currently lmce 0810 is quite unstable and between updates some things are being broken, the obvious solution is to create backup or snapshot before doing any update and then revert back if any issues are found.

I would like to start using 0810 for my flat and not worry about when (not if) some update will break my system

I don't expect that this feature be implemented in lmce but some more skilled linux users could do this manually or with few scripts. I use LVM but haven't used it's snapshot feature because it has one big drawback you have to specify snapshot volume size and once you run out of that space there are no more snapshots, also each snapshot (if you do it daily or weekly) creates new full size image that takes lots of space. Also snapshots significantly degrada LVM performance.

Btrfs and ZFS have much better snapshots that do copy-on-write shapshots, ta. Btrfs is not available in 0810, but will be when lmce switches to Ubuntu 10.04. ZFS is only available in userspace so you can't use it for your root partition

Any thoughts on this?

I was thinking of trying btrfs on lmce, I can get kernel up to date with btrfs support without problem, but not sure if it is possible to install btrfs tools from Ubuntu 10.04 debs on lmce 0810. Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Andrew if I understood you have your own update repositories for Dianemo, right? You probably test carefully everything before pushing out an update, or you don't even do any remote updates?

Do any of you thing this is even worth the trouble?

ps. As I'm Fedora user and yum had neat "yum downgrade" feature, not sure if apt-get has something similar. If it does then it would be a simple task of just checking which packages were updated in last update and downgrading the problematic one to version that worked ok.

[Marie.O]

Currently LinuxMCE 0810 is quite unstable and between updates some things are being broken, the obvious solution is to create backup or snapshot before doing any update and then revert back if any issues are found.

Don't upgrade if things are working for you.

ps. As I'm Fedora user and yum had neat "yum downgrade" feature, not sure if apt-get has something similar. If it does then it would be a simple task of just checking which packages were updated in last update and downgrading the problematic one to version that worked ok.

Code: [Select]

apt-get install package=version-you-want-installed

[jh15]

I would like to take an image of my system as I go along.
I was planning to use my Nightowl Ghost2003 boot cd that usually is bulletproof, but wouldn't you know, it errors out when trying to copy LinuxMCE as image to another partition.

What can I use to image or snapshot an existing install? DD? I've used it before, but once I don't use it for awhile, my feeble memory forgets the details.

I was hoping of some remastering tool like 'mklivecd' or 'mylivecd', which works well in my distro.

[phenigma]

I use an ubuntu live cd or knoppix live cd and use 'partimage' to create backups of my core to my NAS or a USB stick, from time to time.

J.

[tkmedia]

Clonezilla works fine with lmce.
I send my images to my nas.



HTH


Tim