Maintenance & Dumbness Protection

[crosenblum]

Hi all,

I am totally new to linux, but not new to computing. Been into computer's since 1980. Long time window's user sadly lol.

Now I am dual booting winxp/linux mint 12.

I really like what I see so far. Community looks great, and I love the idea of less crap from antivirus etc.

But being the geek that I am, even if i am new to linux.

I have a few questions, answer whichever one appeals to you

1. I am a diehard fan of automated maintenance, scheduled tasks etc, what vital tasks should be run x hours/daily, to keep the os/pc running smoothly, and stable?

2. Being new has risks, as I can see, as this is the 3rd time i've had to reinstall linux mint, because of my partition issues. So now how do i protect myself from doing something really dumb? I don't know what to do, if i do something that causes problems, and how to recover from that. I have setup daily backups, but is that enough to make sure i can rollback if there are problems? Any suggestions?

3. How can i limit what system popup's, popup, so that unless there is a real emergency, i don't need to see it.

4. Any recommended articles on torrent automation? I have used sickbeard + couchpotato + utorrent on windows, I want to do the same via linux. Sorry if this is the wrong channel for this question.

Thank you for your time.

Good morning!

[Jupiter_Spunk]

I am a diehard fan of automated maintenance, scheduled tasks etc, what vital tasks should be run x hours/daily, to keep the os/pc running smoothly, and stable?

It looks like you answer the biggest one in your 2nd question BACKUPS!.
keep an eye on partition sizes using df If something seems to be growing, find out why.
The only other big thing to do is the updates (not upgrades)
Otherwise, unlike windows, linux maintains itself.

here is an older article that I found handy.
http://maketecheasier.com/8-ways-to-maintain-a-clean-lean-ubuntu-machine/2008/10/07

2. Being new has risks, as I can see, as this is the 3rd time i've had to reinstall linux mint, because of my partition issues. So now how do i protect myself from doing something really dumb? I don't know what to do, if i do something that causes problems, and how to recover from that. I have setup daily backups, but is that enough to make sure i can rollback if there are problems? Any suggestions?

Backups are huge, and how you do your backups is important for quick recovery. MintBackup is nice, learn to use it and it will save you some time.
I also suggest learning rsync, and how to use cron.

rsync basics http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=15082

cron https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto

If you really want to be safe, and have plenty of disk storage.... virtualize.
use kvm or vmware desktop to create a virtualized replica of your installation. Try your changes there before making the changes on your desktop.
Plus, its fun to learn, and you'll find yourself virtualizing in other ways.



I'll leave 3 to someone else.

4. Any recommended articles on torrent automation? I have used sickbeard + couchpotato + utorrent on windows, I want to do the same via linux. Sorry if this is the wrong channel for this question.

I don't have a problem with torrenting, (is that a word) But I don't do it. There is absolutely no way to do it safely and without the possibility of legal action.
In my opinion not worth the risk. Get friendly with Pandora and Red box.

[crosenblum]

Thanks for the quick response.

I did enable the backup system, as i have two hard drive's, which is handy, to have as a backup system.

Beyond my home folder, is there anything else I should be backing up?

The way this partition is setup, is at 70 gigs, i am trying to have each os have a max size of 60-70 gigs. Then i have other partitions for all the major data, videos etc.

Oh and I do have a lot of dvd's i own as well. But I like having a few media centers.

For example in my downstairs floor, i have a softmodded original xbox with xbmc + 500 meg hd, that has streaming access of any content on my main pc, which now dual boots win xp/linux.

I know how to do my automation on windows, just want to learn how on linux.

oh, and I just setup gnome-schedule, to run 2 seperate events, 1 that does sudo apt-get autoclean && sudo apt-get autoremove and the 2nd that does sudo apt-get update. But when i run the event task, it asks for my root password, but it shouldn't do that as a scheduled task, is there a step i am missing, to add my pwd as part of the task?

Thanks...for the info, I truly appreciate it.

[Jupiter_Spunk]

beyond your home folder, there are only a few things. Linux Mint has a application back up option that is handy. It basically backs up a list of what you have installed. after reload you restore it and it goes through and re download everything.

The other big one is any config files you have customized. like your xorg.conf, or any aliases you have setup. Anything you customize in /etc. except FSTAB. (although having a copy doesn't hurt for reference.

[DrHu]

For item 1

I think you can just depend on security updates and checking logs, if you do that or if you wait until a problem occurs: then check.

And if you are doing it in auto mode, you might consider snapshots or other types of restore points, to fix any problems introduces by OS or application updates: security is often enough an OK update, the other two not as sure.

For popups, send an email if it is being logged to your screen or your logon as a check
--pick the ones you want, for example kernel panic is obviously critical, but may not be the only error you might want to pay attention to, it is up to you and how you are running the system

[artouk]

You can use both sickbeard and couchpotato on linux, I've got them set up on my server although I rarely use them, pretty sure there's install instructions on each one of their websites that are easy to follow. Just set them to download to your preferred torrent app's watch folder, I'd recommend qBittorrent or Deluge.