Notices

First off, I'm sick too, and IDK about doing much of anything right now, and possibly not for another week. Only reason I'm posting thisd is cause mister impatient(sethkha) PMed me complaining that I hadn't posted recently.

As far as splitting the home/opt... NO. It's all part of one filesystem, not restoring it all together can cause problems. Heck, you're not even supposed to be restoring different opt/rootfs's!

If -you- want to fork it and modify it... go ahead. But I see no use.

mkfs.ext3... hm, never thought about it like that. I might just add that.

online backup...Not my specialty. Go ahead and make it - I've got plenty to work on, on top of being sick right now.

K. Done.

Hey Robbie,

Hope you feel better soon. I'm just getting over my flu now.. feels like it stretched out forever.

Anyway, just wanted to say I actually wrote an online backup utility compatible with BackupMenu; I posted it to this thread a few messages back.

If you're interested, here's a direct link:

http://talk.maemo.org/attachment.php...1&d=1298493069

mister impatient asked if there is a reason you don't answer, as I've seen you writing to another thread. If that's complaining I finally understand why I get so much s*** f*** answers here. But, as you say, it did work, you answered.

Separating apps from the system is no good idea, where separating home and system is not so unusual is Linux. I have the same Home on my Desktop since ~5 years with changing systems and no problems.
(disclaimer: This is no complaint, no nagging and no try to persuade. I am aware that you could be not interested in my explanation. I have no problem with your different opinion)

Yes, I know. LinuxForumStandardAnswer Nr. 137.
(The next one with the right LinuxForumStandardAnswer gets a free battery from me)

Mind, if it's on the 'recent topics' I'll post. I'm not digging through 4+ pages of apps to find it unless I'm all there and happy. And not posting from my n900.

On desktop Linux, yes. On the N900... I doubt it's so easy. Remember, the whole system's kludged together.
I, too, have my desktop Linux system, and I, too have copied the home directory between installs... It usually works, but will often leave behind cruft; differences between application versions can have different config file formats, let alone the simply leftover bits that don't end up getting used. On a desktop system, who cares? On the N900, where every MB counts in the optfs... it's an issue.

And yes. That's the great thing about linux. Don't want to implement someone's (silly?) suggestion? Tell em to do it themselves!
In this case, though, it's not hard - Just pull out a text-editor and get to work!

As I said we have different opinions on the technical stuff, but it's not the first time I had this, and I see no problem. I am using BackupMenu and I am restoring Home after that. It could be a risky suggestion, but it's not silly.
The LFSA is silly, as you can use it for everything. You want to run iPhone Apps on N900? Go and write some emulator. You want multitouch? Go and do whatever is needed to get it. You want peace for the world? Go and whatever. This Forum could have a big banner only:" If you miss something an your N900 go write it yourself."
I can understand that you don't want to add it. But it is NOT easy, I looked through the code several times, and I am still not sure if I will succeed. Maybe I just wouldn't have asked if it was that easy.

BackupMenu has NO way of separating out the data as they are housed on a single partition. Re-write your tables, fork BackupMenu and commit some code.

I have a better idea.

Write your own forum and go be happy on your own.

Nice try
Unfortunately this doesn't qualify you for a free battery. We had that already. But for posting a dumber example for my argumentation you get a free virtual battery -> []. If you said I should write my own Internet, I would have given you a virtual charger in addition.

RobbieThe1st said it's not hard, you say it's impossible. I made clear I don't know, so I am not able to say who is right here.

I don't know why you think you have to jump in this discussion (8 hours to late). But NO, I am not really interested. I know I shouldn't have answered to this, but sometimes I just can't hold back. So, without any sarcasm, sorry Robbie.

Maybe I can make something more clear in this "discussion".

First of all, it IS a standard behaviour to implement something by oneself if the author of original software doesn't do it, by whatever reason. As many people don't know how to code they can either pay for it or try to initialize something called a fork of a software. Good example is mozilla with all its derivative applications like firefox, thunderbird, seamonkey and many more. But the average user has no right to command the developer to implement a specific function. One can always ask for something and try to convince the developer to do something (for which some good arguments are needed), but that's it.

Second point is regarding folder structure on n900. Usually you have three different partitions with one filesystem each:
root which is mounted on "/" with filesystem ubifs
home which is mounted on "/home" with filesystem ext3
MyDocs which is mounted on "/home/user/MyDocs" with filesystem vfat

Most interesting here is home partition which contains all folders in /home as there are /home/user and /home/opt and probably more. They are on same partiton and therefore within the same filesystem. So you have to differentiate between the filesystem structure and the logical distribution of data. The filesystem structure contains ALL files within this filesystem regardless where they are stored or what they are used for. Doing a backup is made easiest when storing the complete filesystem to another place. Replaying a backup therefore is easiest made when storing the complete backup to the partition again.

Beside that you can distinguish between the logical parts of that filesystem. You have "user", which is your home folder and "opt" where all the important files of installed packages are stored. As some data of installed packages are also stored to rootfs it is very important to keep root and opt in a consistent state.

What you could do is erase /home/user and loose all your personal data. All needed files there should be generated when first booting the device or calling an application (but don't claim me on that, maybe some files are needed first for full functionality). Therefore you also could selectively restore /home/user from another backup and use that data instead or try to do a seperate backup of /home/user. Implementing something like that in backup menu should be doable even if it's not that easy.

Nevertheless, please calm down and come back to a knowledgeable discussion.

Is it possible to install BackupMenu (non-destructively) with flasher? Or does it require a working system to install the first time?

My N900 won't boot (stuck on animated 5 dots forever) and I'm thinking of ways to edit/backup the rootfs before wiping it out. (Sadly I didn't discover this tool until it was too late.)

Unfortunately not. You need to install a patched initfs in order to hijack and push it to an external boot script.