On Friday 09 March 2007, Ed Greshko wrote: >Mike McCarty wrote: >>> wondering why you wouldn't use Amanda. >> >> (1) It requires installing Yet Another Package onto my already >> cramped for free space system. > >All the amanda rpms are quite small. The largest is 500K. > >> (2) It requires learning how to use Yet Another Package when >> I'm not interested in making my OS be a hobby. > >Yes, a personal choice. > >> (3) It uses other than Standard Tools, which if I decide to >> move to another OS will make my backups not very usable. > >Yeah, that's the problem with open source software. It makes it so hard > to move to a different platform. :-) > >BTW, it doesn't use "other than standard tools". It uses either native > dump and/or GNU tar. > >> (4) The Standard Tools are perfectly adequate for the task, >> so far. > >Right...so far....to a point... > >> In fact, I wonder why that is even a question. > >Because use of amanda makes a nice way to do backups and takes care of > all problems one may encounter trying to maintain their own set of >tools/scripts. Thought you may want to give it a try. You don't have > to. Just a suggestion. Have fun hacking at tar and gzip. Warning, rant mode on. The only comment I'll make about 'non-std' tools vs amanda is: When in the hell will gnu.org ever give us a stable tar that Just Works(TM)? Fully half the releases since 1.09 have been broken in one manner or another, at the jobs tar is normally asked to do. The api seems to get stirred around in everytime gnu.org opens a fresh can of coffee for the office brewer. Users of tar, INCLUDING amanda, expect a stable api, and we've never had one for more than a few months in the 15 years I've been both using it on various platforms all the way back to a coco running os9, and 8 years now of running amanda. To say that we are inconvenienced by all this moving targetism is both the truth, and evidence of a don't care attitude by the source of that code, gnu.org. I'm well aware I may be stepping on someones toes with this rant. OTOH, our toes are quite sore also, along with the heel spurs and such from running to stay in place as tar bounces around, seemingly like a chicken that's freshly bound for the pot. The difference is that the chicken eventually stops, and you can then fix it according to your normal recipe. /rant -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Rainy days and automatic weapons always get me down.
