How I Destroyed Mint Linux!

[clywhite]

Well, here we go; I love Mint so far. I have been using it for two weeks now. Anyway I was reading on-line and people were talking about how you can install the Ubuntu software-center into Mint. So, I did it. Everything worked great after the install so I thought I was good to go. Then it happened. I was checking to see if there were any system updates and sure enough there were about 60 give or take. So, I didn't know any better and I hit install. That was a mistake. Somehow it looked at my version and tried to update my Mint to the latest Ubuntu and that was an EPIC Fail. The entire system still worked, all the software ran just fine. I thought I a-OK. Then I tried to install some software from the Mint software center. It would not work. there was some crazy message I didn't understand.... Then system errors started showing up every time I did anything. It got worse. and worse. In about a four hour period I went from running fine to being able to nothing that required Internet access, or anything that required access to the system setting, updates, ect. One other thing, I could not remove any software after I installed the updates that were clearly for Ubuntu not Mint. I tried but no-joy. I was able to backup all my files that I had created, so I reinstalled the system. I am now happy and going good.
So my advice to anyone else that is new to Linux is: Use it as it is, don't start installing new software sources.
Anyway thats my story on how I destroyed my Linux Mint install.

[Oscar799]

Most of us who have been here a while have broken things fairly catastrophically at least once - usually we learn from this,but sometimes we don't and have to break it again to reinforce the lesson...
As long as you keep backup copies of important files,(or use Clonezilla to clone the drive) curiosity and experimentation don't do too much harm

[tdockery97]

Yes, believe it or not, some of us seem to have twisted the software philosophy to be: "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is".

[fraxinus_63]

All of us have wrecked a distro at least once in our careers, through (for example) mixing and matching repositories in the wrong way. Solution - use VirtualBox to run a spare version of your favourite distro (or an unfamiliar distro you are tracking). Keep backups and snapshots of your virtual install regularly; then you can explore the limits and take a few risks. If you bring the system down with an 'experiment', just restore your backup and you are ready to go again.

[xenopeek]

Yeah, I've borked more than one installation in my time In fact, just a few weeks ago I somehow managed to get the dreaded ICEauthority problem on my Xfce install (and with an encrypted disk, no way to recover ... oh well). For all experimenting and supporting on the forums I use VirtualBox, as also recommended by fraxinus_63. It's made me rather fearless with experimenting, as I can't mess up my main system. Pure joy

[palo]

Been there - done that too. I like the saying tdockery97 has. Have to add it to my list with "if it ain't broke - you haven't tweaked it enough". Like those above I am a strong believer in "try it in Vbox first" and it has made me feel much more comfortable about experimenting.

Pat

[clywhite]

I love all the replies. At least Im not along in that. The good news is I havnt broken anything else....yet.

[reklan]

Give it time...

Done it at least once per distro i have tried....

[caerolle]

This is probably a really stupid way to do things, but I have never had much success with VMing...

I use an SSD in addition to the standard HDD on my computer. The SSD has Mint 13 w/Xfce (and some othe WMs/DEs), and is the heart of my stable, amazing, Supergirl system that runs anything I want, including a viewer to an online environment that I have been unable to make run on any other Linux distro. The HDD generally has an Arch build I am working on, and a rotation of other distros (which is very slow now, really Mint and Arch have risen to the top for me, as great complements). I don't do anything risky to the SSD/Mint, but try most anything on the HDD.

This is where it really gets stupid, I think, but I don't know a better way. I loaded Mint on the SSD with the HDD unhooked, so it only has a bootloader for that disk, and for Mint. When I add a new distro to the HDD, I unhook the SSD, as I have lost access to my Mint before trying to add stuff the HDD with the SSD installed. So, the HDD also only has bootloader for the HDD, and hopefully the OSes on it. (Though, I have lost access to the first OS when I added the second many time, too. I think you can go in and edit the GRUB to get it back, but usually I just start over). Most of the time, I have both disks hooked up, and when I want to switch OSes, I just reboot and interrupt the BIOS boot and select the drive I want, and go about my merry way.

And while I am sure I don't hold the record for completely trashing OSes, I have definitely taken several to the point that I had to just reinstall. Probably someone with more knowledge and experience could have fixed them, but at least I learned a lot in the process. Linux is so much fun!

caerolle

[Incentive I.C]

use VirtualBox to run a spare version of your favourite distro

That is genius! Why didn't i ever think of that? very good suggestion fraxinus_63
I have always been a bit confused on how a backup works. I know how to backup but how in the world does the restore command work? Any suggestions on a good backup software for Linux. I do not have a spare hard drive. Would somthing like a 20Gb flashdrive be fine?

[usbtux]

use VirtualBox to run a spare version of your favourite distro

That is genius! Why didn't i ever think of that? very good suggestion fraxinus_63
I have always been a bit confused on how a backup works. I know how to backup but how in the world does the restore command work? Any suggestions on a good backup software for Linux. I do not have a spare hard drive. Would somthing like a 20Gb flashdrive be fine?

I use an external hard drive for my main system, this is a clean install of Mint Maya Cinnamon. (I used to work in an environment that I would change clients hard drives and they would be just junked... So I have at least 10 disks 20 to 240GB IDE Drives, used in computers or external caddies.) On a Win 7 home assembled computer - now only used for things that wont run on Linux.
I like others use VM's to play with different distros, to test things out, to learn how to do things etc.

I also use Flash drives to install distros on - basically they act exactly like small hard drives. You need to use the fastest ones you can get ( per your budget) I generally use Kingston G3 16G and have no problems, they run very well.

I generaly use VM's to test out new livecd images, its very easy just to mount the iso and reboot.
VM installed systems can be backed up and installed onto flash drives.
You can install directly to external/flash drive from a VM livecd
Flash drives can be backed up and installed onto harddrives (internal or external).
I have installed and backed up fully setup mint cinnamon and mint xfce systems that take 10 minits to reinstall again if I really screw up.

The backup I use is Redo livecd - unfortunately its a full backup not incremental - exactly like clonzilla so you have to watch for the partition sizes...

Take a look at http://usbtux.hostzi.com/clone_a_VM_to_ ... ve_install

[MaverickJester]

Welcome to the crowd. I have been using Linux since the mid 90's and I can't tell you how many times I had to rebuild. Even work systems (things were different back then)! Even today, I still have a box that I don't nothing but test new stuff. Granted it can be frustrating at times but it is still fun most of the time. Just be careful on your main system. And no I don't break work/production systems any longer ^^

[Emegra]

I've lost count of how many times I've screwed up an operating system, Windows & linux,

I just can't leave things alone, especially with Linux because there's so much more you do with it, consequently so much more to screw up,

My philosophy seems to be if it aint broken break it, How else do I learn, it can actually be fun in a strange sort of way, but what isn't fun is losing data, there's just nothing fun about losing data, I've learned that to my cost,

I've also learned never to keep important data on a PC, lets face it PC's can screw up without our help, So my solution is a Freenas server, You can easily build one from an old PC load some drives in it and store all your data out of harms way, It's not a difficult thing to do and If I can do it anyone can, then you can mess about with your PC till your heart's content in the knowledge that if you screw up it's no great loss, if yopu can't fix it you can always re-install, that's the beauty of Linux it's fun


Graeme

[Incentive I.C]

use VirtualBox to run a spare version of your favourite distro

That is genius! Why didn't i ever think of that? very good suggestion fraxinus_63
I have always been a bit confused on how a backup works. I know how to backup but how in the world does the restore command work? Any suggestions on a good backup software for Linux. I do not have a spare hard drive. Would somthing like a 20Gb flashdrive be fine?

I use an external hard drive for my main system, this is a clean install of Mint Maya Cinnamon. (I used to work in an environment that I would change clients hard drives and they would be just junked... So I have at least 10 disks 20 to 240GB IDE Drives, used in computers or external caddies.) On a Win 7 home assembled computer - now only used for things that wont run on Linux.
I like others use VM's to play with different distros, to test things out, to learn how to do things etc.

I also use Flash drives to install distros on - basically they act exactly like small hard drives. You need to use the fastest ones you can get ( per your budget) I generally use Kingston G3 16G and have no problems, they run very well.

I generaly use VM's to test out new livecd images, its very easy just to mount the iso and reboot.
VM installed systems can be backed up and installed onto flash drives.
You can install directly to external/flash drive from a VM livecd
Flash drives can be backed up and installed onto harddrives (internal or external).
I have installed and backed up fully setup mint cinnamon and mint xfce systems that take 10 minits to reinstall again if I really screw up.

The backup I use is Redo livecd - unfortunately its a full backup not incremental - exactly like clonzilla so you have to watch for the partition sizes...

Take a look at http://usbtux.hostzi.com/clone_a_VM_to_ ... ve_install

Wow I didn't know you could do all of that with virtual box what a truly amazing application and quite flexible at that! But how in the word would it be able to install on the hard drive? Would it be like the live CD and have a little install Linux mint icon on the desktop?

Is it possible to put them on R+W DVDs. I know that sounds crazy but for some reason my computer will not boot from a USB Drive! I select it from the Boot menu and it goes straight to the hard drive. If anybody knows how i can fix that please tell me at it seems to be a thing with my brand of the computer....

I remember how I messed up Linux mint ( I hope I remember because it only happened like 2 months ago) I was looking for some way to deep freeze Mint you know put it in frozen state so that all changes would be lost at reboot. unfortunately I succeeded and found a terminal program called Linfreeze. So I downloaded it installed it in its respected areas and tried it on the terminal. The program was alright and it did its job decently but all it did was really take away certain permission rights so I could not download and install applications and test them ( the point of why i wanted this type of technology in the first place). So me in all my brilliance decide to just freeze the whole dang drive. Well i restarted the hardrive light blinked like it always does and just kind of gave up after awhile. I went on a Linux learning experience and found out that i had actually made the hard drive read only! I haven't used that application err... terminal command thing sense even though it is the fault of damn static dictionary. Ugh what is the point of that crap anyway? (just wrote that to try to somewhat get back on topic in this post. )

[catweazel]

"If it ain't broke, fix it until it is"

Stolen! And signatured!