Appendix I

Kanotix 2005-04 Manual

6 Appendix

6.1 Making a Backup

Whoever would like to use his or her system productively, whether in Windows or Linux, should make regular backups of the system and important data in order to be prepared for whatever might come, such as: a damaged hard drive; virus infection (not very likely under Linux); when data is inadvertently deleted during a new installation (or when we upgrade Kanotix); or for the case when after an update the system doesn't run stable.

Nevertheless, data backup is often neglected. It is, however, not difficult to make backups, nor does it require much effort. It is highly recommended to make a backup once a week and save it on an external disk (hd, CD or DVD), one which is ideally kept at a different location than where the pc is located. We will describe how you can, before the installation of Kanotix, backup a Windows partition as well as how to back up a separate Data partition, should one already exist. It would make sense to have a separate FAT32 data partition if data are to be shared between Windows and Linux, because ntfs will not work reliably.

6.1.1 Backing Up the Windows Partition with Partition Image (partimage)

Making a backup of the Windows partition can be quickly and easily done by using the Kanotix Live-CD and partimage. But before doing so, it is very important to defragment the Windows partition (e.g., with Diskeeper)! This is especially true for ntfs partitions because NTFS is not yet fully supported by partimage! Therefore it's also wise to run a test backup on the Windows partition in order to see if there are any error messages. If no errors occur, then it should also be no problem to restore from the backup.

A. Making the Backup

For our example, we assume that Windows is installed on /dev/hda1 and that we are backing up to an external hd, which is recognized as /dev/sda1.

We boot the Computer from the Kanotix Live-CD and open a Root Shell from the Kanotix Menu (Kanotix Menu > Root Shell). Next we will mount the Windows partition and the external hd:

mount /dev/hda1

mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1

Now, with the command

we can check whether the external hd was mounted and whether or not enough free space is available for our backup. Next we start the backup program with the command

partimage

First of all, we use the arrow keys to select the partition we wish to backup, in our case hda1.

Then we use the TAB key to move to the field "Image File to create/use" . Image is a term which is used to refer to an exact copy of a hd, partition or CD, which also contains information about the original structure of the drive.

Here we give the file name in the form /media/sda1/filename

/media/sda1/backup20051205.gz (gz for gzip), for example

Then we move with the TAB key to "Action to be Done" section. If there is not asterisk next to "Save partition into a new image file" we use the space bar to place one there.

Now we move to the next screen with the F5 button.

For compression level we choose gzip (arrow down, space bar). In the options section, we want to select "Check partition before saving" and uncheck "Enter description". Now when we press the F5 button again, the creation of the backup begins.

When partimage has finished creating the backup, we use the command

cd /media/sda1

to move into the backup directory, where one or more files were created. It's possible to set the preferred file size in the partimage dialog. The default setting is 2 GB. When this size is reached, partimage creates an additional file. For example, backup20051205.000, backup20051205.001, backup20051205.002, and so on.

We can now set read privileges for the files with the following command:

chmod +r filename

in our example...

chmod +r backup20051205.000.gz

chmod +r backup20051205.001.gz

chmod +r backup20051205.002.gz

Voila! The backup has been created and we have permissions to read the files. We can now close the root shell and turn off the computer.

B. Restoring from Backup

We begin by booting the computer from the Kanotix Live-CD. We open the root shell and mount the external hd with

mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1

Then, we start partimage with the command

partimage

In the section "Partition to save/restore" we choose the partition to which we want to restore. In our case, hda1.

Then we use the TAB to move to the "Image file to create/use" field, and here we give the name of our backup file (in our example, /media/sda1/backup20051205.000.gz). It is very important to put in the entire filename with the ending 000.gz! Now we move to the "Action to be done" section with TAB and select "Restore partition from an image file" (arrow down, space bar).

Now to the next page with F5.

We can now accept the default option settings and simply hit F5 to begin the restore.

And that's it!

We close the root shell and turn off the computer. The system has now been restored!

Note

There is a graphical user interface program created specially for Kanotix called partclony, which partimage uses. It also supports the reiser4 file system (partimage does not). Because it's not included on the Kanotix CD, one must first download it from the given link and install it. At this point we also would like to mention the KDE Disk Archiver KDar which is a flexible and easy to use backup program for KDE.

6.1.2 Making an Incremental Backup of a Data Partition using rsync

It's way too much work to make a full backup of a data partition every time, because there are likely to be very many files (just think about all the pictures and movies from digital and video cameras). In this case it's enough simply to add new and changed files to a previously created full backup and remove files that no longer exist from the backup. This is called making an incremental backup. The Home Directory (/home) of a Kanotix installation can be backed up regularly using this method. The program we use for this is rsync.

We start Kanotix from the Live-CD. Let's presume the data is on /dev/hda2.

We open a root shell from the Kanotix Menu and mount our data partition and our external hd with the following commands:

mount /dev/hda2 /media/hda2

mount /dev/hda1 /media/hda1

Now with the command

rsync -av --delete /media/hda2/home /media/sda1

we backup the contents of the Home Directory to the external hd.

The options passed to rsync have the following meaning:

* a: all Folders and Files, including all subfolders and their contents will be copied

* v: the rsync progress will be shown on the screen

* delete: Folders and Files that were previously backed up (i.e., they already exist in the backup on the external hd) and no longer exist in the Home Directory will be deleted. If you do not wish for this to happen, simply leave out the --delete option.

To restore the backup, we once again boot the Kanotix Live-CD, and once again open the Root Shell from the menu. Now we mount both the data partition and the external hd with the commands

mount /dev/hda2 /media/hda2

mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1

And with the command

rsync -av --delete /media/sda1/home/ /media/hda2/home

we copy all the files and folders back. Here it's important to include the slash (/) at the end of source --/media/sda1/home/. This ensures that only the data under /media/sda1/home will be copied, not the folder home itself home already exists on /media/hda2.

6.2 Create a /home directory on another partition

These instructions apply to advanced users!

It's useful to create the home directory "/home" on another partition. By doing this you can prevent an overwrite of existing user data (e. g. MozillaMails, preferences etc.) and the existing home directory during the installation of a newer Kanotix version, respectively:

First, create a partition for your /home directory and format it in the corresponding Linux format. This can be done with the partition manager which can be called from the KanotixInstaller (see below [sub:Festplatte konfigurieren]).

Tick in the tab "partitioning" of the Kanotix installer on "Mountpoints anderer Partitionen festlegen". Now assign the mount point /home in the table to the partition which you intended to use for your home directory (see figure in Chapter [sub:Festplatte konfigurieren]). The remaining steps are described in the chapter 3.3 Installing Kanotix

Of course you can also move the home directory after the installation, which is descibed in the Kanotix-wiki (end of page).

6.3 Kanotix on Laptops

The world of Linux offers a broad range of tools to tweak your laptop. However, this short introduction intends to give only an idea what is possible with Linux.

More information can be fund under www.linuxlaptop.org

6.3.1 Suspend to Disk (Hibernation)

In general is Kanotix prepared to use suspend to disk. If you have an ATI graphics card or a Nvidia graphics card and want to use their features follow the steps described in chapter 4.3. Furthermore you need a correct assigned swap partition as described in chapter 3.1.

Open a console and then type:

get-resume-partition

Then reboot and start a KDE session as normal. Then open Kcontrol (K-menu - System . "Kcontrol" or via alt + F2+ "kcontrol") and switch to energy management - laptop-battery. Choose with the arrows "ACPI-Settings". You will be asked for the root password. Enter it and then activate "Hibernation". Now your laptop should support this nice feature. Now your laptop needs to know when it's time to sleep. This can be set according to your wishes in the register "Button Action".

6.3.2 Boot-Up Manager - A Graphical Runlevel Configuration Tool

Many user complain about to many processes running on their machine. A nice tool with a good looking interface is BUM (Boot-Up Manager). However, it depends on you to know what is necessary to run. In any case you need to know what you are doing, because you will possibly affect important system processes. Reading the manpages, help files and google will help you to decide. Make some notes, so you can undo the settings later on. Anyway, this tool will also be used later on to configure your laptop in a convenient way. Therefore use KPackage (chapter 5.1) or apt-get (Note in chapter 5) as described to install "bum".

6.3.3 Control Power-Saving Mode on AMD Athlon/Duron CPUs

A useful program for AMD Athlon/Duron CPUs is "athcool". If it is not on your laptop, install it via KPackage (chapter 5.1) or from command line:

apt-get update

apt-get install athcool

exit

6.4 What is an MD5 check sum?

An MD5 check sum is quasi the "fingerprint" of a file. It is used to check if the file might be corrupted. Windows users need to download the tool (e. g. from here:[http://www.etree.org/md5com.html]) and to copy it in the windows directory e. g. C:\Windows. Most likely Linux user will already have this tool onboard.

To use the tool open a console (Linux) or prompt (Windows) and change to the directory where the file is you want to check. Then enter:

md5sum KANOTIX-2005-04.iso

It may take a while (up to some minutes) for the calculation of the MD5 sum. The result is, as you can guess, the MD5 sum which can be compared the one given by Kanotix. If they are the same your file should be ok!

You can also download the KANOTIX-2005-04.iso.md5-file to check the MD5 sum:

md5sum -c KANOTIX-2005-04.iso.md5

(assuming both files (*.iso and *.md5) are in the same directory!).

6.5 Help and useful links

If you want to get information about programmes, commands etc. your starting point should be the KDE Help Center (K-menu - Help). There you can also find the so called manpages (manual pages) with detailed information on Linux programmes and commands.

It is faster to load a manpage for a special program or command via Konqueror. Just type in the adress box

man:program name or man:command

Of course you can also find information and help on the Kanotix-Wiki, the FAQ-section, the Kanotix forum and the IRC-Chat.

In addition the following links are very useful:

http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/knowing-knoppix/index.html

http://qref.sourceforge.net/index.en.php

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/liste/start.html

http://www.kdeapps.org/

http://www.kdelook.org/