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Getting Started with Puppy Linux:
Backing Up, Upgrading, and Restoring:
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Wagonmaster and Chief Iceman: David "Pa" McClamrock
Username pa, domain pa-mcclamrock.com, put @ in between and you'll get my e-mail address, but perhaps spammers won't.
On the Puppy Linux Discussion Forum, I'm known as pa_mcclamrock.
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Backing Up, Upgrading, and Restoring
When computing disaster strikes, like when your hard drive or motherboard suddenly goes bad, it's pleasant to know that you can readily make your filesystem as good as new, once you've replaced the defective hardware. You can, if you've got all your valuable files backed up and ready to restore; if not, you can't.
Even if disaster doesn't strike, you'll probably have some use for backed-up and easily restorable files, like if you want to upgrade your operating system without starting all the configuration over from scratch. This page is about how to make the processes of backup and restoration as quick and painless as possible. For Puppy Linux users, there's also a section on how to integrate backup and restoration with the process of upgrading a basic Puppy system (i.e., boot CD/DVD plus pupsave/lupusave file)
Custom Automated Backup
I use WISH Disc-Writer to back up big chunks of my filesystem every now and then, but that's not all. Every day I back up all the files I've changed since the last backup, it only takes me a few seconds, and I don't even need to remember which ones they were. Here's how. I mount my flash drive that I use for backup, and then I click the Backup button in WISH File Rusher. This opens up a little "Backup" box like the one shown here. I select the "Daily_Flash_Backup" list and click the BACKUP button. Almost at once I get a message saying how many files were backed up. That's it!
You can do it too, although I admit it may take you a full few minutes to set up an automated backup list, depending on how many different directories and files you want to back up. Once you get one or more backup lists set up, though, they should be yours for as long as you want them--at least as long as you back up the .wishes subdirectory of your home directory, which is where they're kept.
To set up a list, click the Add List button in the Backup box. This will open up a window a lot like the one you see here, except it won't have anything listed yet, and it will say "Add" instead of "Edit." Move this window up, and the main WISH File Rusher window down if needed, so the "Add Item(s)" button will remain visible.
Give your list a name, on the "List Name" entry line. Then do exactly the same as if you were going to copy some files or directories--select some on one side of WISH File Rusher, and have the receiving directory open on the other side--but click "Add Item(s)" instead of "Copy." Repeat with more items and/or different receiving directories, if desired. You can select links as well as existing files; the links won't be copied to the receiving directory, but they'll be listed so you can restore them later. If you make a mistake, select the erroneous items from the list and click "Remove Item(s)." When you're done, click "DONE"--but you can still change the list later, by selecting it and clicking "Edit List" in the Backup window.
To use a list for backup, select the list, make sure the drive with the receiving directories is mounted, and click the big BACKUP button. The first time you use a list, you'll be prompted to do a "Full" backup of every file in every directory listed, which may take a while if there are a lot of files. After that, you'll probably want a quick "Regular" backup of only the files that have been changed since the last backup. That's all there is to it--unless you find one or more bugs that I haven't found, in which case you should let me know by e-mail.
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Upgrading Puppy Linux
If you've got a basic Puppy Linux system with a boot CD/DVD and a pupsave file, and a new version of Puppy comes out, you can upgrade just by booting up the new version and using your same old pupsave file. It may even work with no problems. The trouble is, it may not. How come?
Well, for example, there may be new versions of programs, requiring new versions of auxiliary files ("libraries" of functions, or whatnot), while the old versions required old versions of the same auxiliary files--and the old ones, under some circumstances you may or may not know about, may be in your old pupsave file. What happens when you've got two different versions of the same file, a new one in your Puppy main file that came from the boot disc, and an old one in your pupsave file? The old one from the pupsave file "covers up" the new one, and gets used instead of the new one! That's exactly what you don't want. It may not be all that likely to happen, but it's really irritating if it happens even once.
The way to make sure it doesn't happen is to have everything you want to keep from the old pupsave file backed up and ready to restore quickly, in a new pupsave file, after you boot up the new Puppy version. Here's how I do it.
First, since it's a lot quicker to link to a big file or directory than to copy it, I keep as much of my documents, pictures, music, and other data as I can in external directories on my hard drive under /mnt, which I regularly back up on flash drives and rewritable CDs. For convenience, I link these as subdirectories under /root. When it comes time to restore them after upgrading, all I need to do is re-link them. So, I list all the links I can find from /root (or elsewhere in the Puppy filesystem, but not under /mnt) to external directories in my "Pup_Update" backup/restore list (see above), so I can automatically re-link them after upgrading.
I also list configuration files and directories, under /root, in "Pup_Update" for copying. These are usually "hidden" files, meaning their names start with dots, so I click "Show Hidden Files" in WISH File Rusher to see them. I don't list them all, but I do list the ones containing files I've changed, like .wishes, .icewm, and sylpheed-2.0. A couple of configuration files that aren't hidden are PuppyPin and globicons in the /root/Choices/ROX-Filer directory; you'll want to back these up if you've modified the arrangement or functions of your desktop icons and you want to get the modified setup back.
Then there are miscellaneous things like custom background images, which are linked to /usr/share/backgrounds, and custom desktop icons, which are linked to /usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps. Little two-line scripts to run various kinds of "default" programs, such as /usr/local/bin/defaulttexteditor which I've modified to run WISH Supernotepad, are on the list too. Your "pup update" list may turn out to be a lot different from mine--but, if you make one and use it, I'm pretty sure you'll be glad you did.
Once I've got everything backed up and ready to restore, here's what I do, and what I'd suggest that you do too. (It will not have to make your desktop look like the ultra-crowded one pictured here!)
1. Boot up new Puppy version "puppy pfix=ram" to make sure your existing pupsave file won't be affected. You have to type at least the first "p" in "puppy" before your 5 seconds or so are up; otherwise, Puppy will boot up normally and try to find a pupsave file. After waiting a few minutes for the new Puppy main file to be loaded for the first time, do the post-boot things I mentioned in the section on Getting, Booting, and Configuring Puppy, including rebooting your computer, creating your pupsave file, and copying your main file to something a lot faster than a CD.
2. Click the "File" icon at the upper left corner of the standard Puppy desktop, to open ROX-Filer with your home directory (/root, also known more cryptically as "~") displayed. Mount your backup drive; drag and drop your backup copy of the .wishes directory from the backup drive window to the home directory window, and click "Copy" in the pop-up menu. Then find the directory where your .PET packages for Tcl, Gnocl, and WISH File Rusher are located, and single-click to install them in that order.
3. Restore your backed-up files and links (see below).
4. Reinstall your additional .PET packages. If you know which ones they are and where they are, you can just click their icons one by one in ROX-Filer to install them. You can also use the Petget button in WISH File Rusher, which will let you select more than one at once. If you've got a huge number of them, though, you may not want to select them all at once; otherwise your desktop may look like the one pictured here, until you click the install boxes to install each one of them.
That's all, or almost all, there is to it--if all goes well. If it doesn't, you know what to do: ask questions at the Puppy Forum, or send me e-mail.
Quick Restoration after Upgrade or Disaster
If you've got your backup done right, and you use the automatic restore function in WISH File Rusher, restoring your backed-up files and links to the way you want them after an upgrade is extremely simple and quick. With your backup drive mounted, click the "Restore" button in the middle column, select your update list, and then click the big "RESTORE" button in the little Restore window. You should soon get a dialog box like the one shown here, telling you how many files were copied and triumphantly informing you that no errors were detected--if all goes well.
If all already hasn't gone well, like if your system has crashed and you need to restore everything, you're still OK if you've got all your valuable data backed up. If you've also got an "Everything" backup/restore list that itself has been backed up from /root/.wishes where it originally was, and if "everything" fits on one external drive or whatever, the restoration will take longer than if you were just restoring a few files and links after an upgrade, but it will still get done. Even if you don't, and you've just done a new installation with an otherwise totally empty hard drive, and you've got countless backup CDs, DVDs, or whatever, a manual restoration will still work. Just mount the backups one at a time; view their contents on one side of WISH File Rusher and the appropriate empty hard-drive directories on the other; select everything on the backup side; click Copy; and read a good book while the backups are copied to make new originals, later to be backed up in their turn.
If the good book is the Good Book . . . and if the manual restoration is taking quite a while, and you begin to doze off, perchance to dream . . . it's imaginable that something as silly as this might even enter your mind:
Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like ten . . . zzzzzzzz . . . ten reporters, who taking their laptops went out to write news articles about the wedding of a famous bridegroom and bride. Now five of the reporters were foolish, and five were wise. The five foolish ones took their computers, but made no Puppy CDs and data backups to take with them; but the five wise ones made Puppy CDs and backups, and took them. The bridegroom was long in coming, and all those reporters dozed off; and while they were asleep, their hard drives crashed. And at midnight the cry went out: "The bridegroom is coming! Go out to meet him!" Then all those reporters arose and tried to use their computers; and the foolish ones said to the wise ones, "Give us your Puppy CDs and backups! Our hard drives have crashed!" But the wise ones said, "No, we need to use our own Puppy CDs right now, and our backed-up data isn't the same as yours. You should have brought your own Puppy CDs and backups." Then the wise ones went in with the bridegroom, and the door was shut; and the foolish ones were cast into outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Yes, it's silly, like any other supposed update of the Bible--although I'm pretty sure it's no worse than average in that respect, and I'm sure the percentage of wise reporters in the story is a whole lot better than average. It does have a point, though, and not only about the need to be prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven lest you don't get in. The more immediate, earthly point is that you can avoid a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, arising from sudden and unexpected loss of data, by being prepared with quick, easy backups and automated procedures to restore your data (as well as one or more Puppy CDs). By the same means, you can avoid even a little wailing and teeth-gnashing that might otherwise arise from upgrading your Linux operating system, whether it's Puppy or any other distribution. If you're wise, you will; if not, you won't. Enough said?