System Snapshot or Backup

[Simon Cropper]

Hi Everyone,

Love Puppy.

I have a range of old machines that have gone into disuse over the last 5 years due to hardware aging and lack of CPU/RAM resources. Stumbled onto Puppy trying to resurrect an old machine.

I have successfully installed Puppy and then Legacy OS on an old HP Vectra machine I had lying around. Both worked exceptionally well - boy, now I wish I never gave away all those old machines!

I ended up going to Legacy OS because the end user was a complete beginner. The profile ... a 74-year-old Nonna, new to computing. I rightly or wrongly took that Puppy is aimed at reasonably computer literate users that are less likely to do the wrong thing and Legacy OS more aimed at beginners.

I have spent some time tinkering with the Desktop and made it more 'newbee friendly' but expect a telephone call at sometime in the future stating that she somehow fried the desktop. Unique data backup aside*, what I would like to know is how to get what I have got, saved, so when 'that call comes' it is just a matter of sticking a disk in the CD tray, reinstalling the saved image and copying back her saved data**.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

PS. If anyone knows of a good menu manager for IceWM that would allow me to hide some of the more dangerous menu options, a link would be appreciated. I have looked at the 'menu' text file in the /root/.icewm directory but am a bit reticent about cutting out menu items. I note also that the logout/logoff options are also not found in this file and changing options in the associated configuration files do not appear to have an effect - hence the desire to locate a suitable editor.

Footnotes
* I will probably setup a backup script that works when she closes down the desktop. I have put an icon on the desktop to make it easy to select 'close computer' as the menu is a little tricky for beginners and may result in her logging off rather than turning off the computer, resulting in her being faced with a terminal prompt.
** Data will be saved to a separate partition on the HD using a backup script tagged onto the 'turn computer off script'

Cheers Simon.

[8-bit]

Items that appear in the menu are located in /usr/share/applications.
Removing a desktop file from that directory and then opening a terminal and typing "fixmenus" followed by a restart of the window manager will work.
As to desktop icon links, you can right click on one and select remove.

Hope that helps.

[Lobster]

Love Puppy.

So you should. Not compulsory but highly recommended
Welcome to the kennels

Yours is an interesting question and there are several options.
From menu / setup / remaster
to multisession
to my solution - UWillFU (which means in my case 'You Will F*&^ Up')

I run Alpha versions of Puppy, visit dubious websites (including my own)
and run as root with full javascript and flash, cookies enabled
and probably worse of all - no tin foil hat

So I know how to set up Puppy and run from DVD
(I never have time to bother with an install)

I keep my bookmarks and pictures of sardines in compromising tins
on unmounted hard disks (I KNEW I would eventually find out what unmounting was for).
A version of Puppy such as Lucid (straight to desktop) makes things easy
I keep any pets on the Hard disk

I backup any data from 'my documents' into those hard disks

Hope that helps


Puppy Linux
Run Light. Run Free

[Simon Cropper]

Items that appear in the menu are located in /usr/share/applications.
Removing a desktop file from that directory and then opening a terminal and typing "fixmenus" followed by a restart of the window manager will work.
As to desktop icon links, you can right click on one and select remove.

Hope that helps.

If you use this method to cull the menu will it result in orphaned files that will cause a problem, or dependencies required by other programs being deleted?

[Simon Cropper]

I backup any data from 'my documents' into those hard disks

Do I take it that all pertinent data not-specific-to-the-system is housed in the 'My Documents' directories? You know, things like links, desktop preferences, Desktop icons, etcetera?

... and that copying files from a backup of this directory on top of a fresh install will reinstate a 'saved' session after rebooting?

[Lobster]

Do I take it that all pertinent data not-specific-to-the-system is housed in the 'My Documents' directories? You know, things like links, desktop preferences, Desktop icons, etcetera?

No.
It is just the data I want . . . so that is perhaps unusual

If you want all the config data
you need something like
spupsave.3fs
lupusave-pupice008.3fs
(name depends on the Puppy you are using . . .
and the name you gave when first saving config details)

This will be in mnt/home