Author Topic: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?  (Read 15607 times)

roberto

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I was thinking
1- Make a backup of the complete bootable drive rar (in this case i can restore)
1A Backing os2.ini files, desktop, * inis. cfg Any others?
1b-Copy NET.ACC to zip
2 format and install the new system without any program.
3- Take a list of all files in the new system.
4- do a restore everything but not include the list nÂș3
5-Restore 1a
6-Restore 1b
Will this work?

Doug Bissett

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2015, 12:38:12 am »
Quote
I was thinking

What are you trying to do? It seems to me that all that you will accomplish is to remove any system updates that you did, and may need. You will definitely keep a lot of junk that you probably don't want. At least add: 7 - Install updates.


Greggory Shaw

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2015, 01:47:32 am »

I was thinking
1- Make a backup of the complete bootable drive rar (in this case i can restore)

Not sure what you want to do, but RAR stops on a boot drive if it's started up and running sometimes, zip is much better.

If you are talking about just backuping up the boot drive use - Backagain/ 2000 is the best if the partition is under 2GB

Zip is the easist to use when moving the entire boot to another location.

Here's a long list of backup solutions:

http://os2notes.duckdns.org/os2backups.html


Greggory

« Last Edit: November 26, 2015, 01:53:02 am by Greggory Shaw »

ivan

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2015, 03:05:04 pm »
I assume what you are looking for is a way make sure that you have all the updated DLLs that are required for the newer ported programs.

If that is the case you could consider what we do for our workstations.

Our standard boot partition has grown over the years to 1.5 Gb (this allows us to have things like xWP, Warpin, java and some standard tools included as well as a DLL directory that includes all the non OS/2 DLLs).
We then use DFSee to make an image of that partition which is stored on one of our NAS boxes and the disk storage system in the server rack.
Programs are installed on other partitions and generally grouped by function.  any DLLs they require are installed in the DLL directory on the boot partition (this DLL partition appears directly after the os2/dll notation in the config.sys libpath).

With this setup, updating programs is simple and should anything go wrong generally we only have to replace the stand alone DLL directory.  Likewise, if necessary, we can format the boot partition and restore the disk image to get back to our standard configurarion and use roborestore to get back the desktop setup.

roberto

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2015, 04:30:14 pm »
What I seek is to upgrade PCs from version ecs3.0 to version ecs 3.1. Keeping other programs and settings.

Rar is my working pretty well. Lately with large volumes, and NAS units tend to fail some copies approx.20%. But I'm not so clear that the problem is the rar, but I think the problem is in samba, or NAS.
I use this backup with rar, pure rexx:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/backup/backrar009.zip
I am testing this other, work with rsync and I like, but I have test more:
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/qtapps/luckybackup-0.4.8-os2.7z

Greggory Shaw

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2015, 05:24:19 pm »
What I seek is to upgrade PCs from version ecs3.0 to version ecs 3.1. Keeping other programs and settings.

...

That's still hard to do - ObjectDesktop 2.0 has a way backup the WPS and transfer I believe (any correction on this).

Try the migration way installing over eCS 2.0 (not recommended less you have a complete backup rysnc is not a complete backup solution).


 

ivan

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2015, 05:28:59 pm »
I think you mean eCS v2.0 to eCS v2.1.

It should be very simple if you have nothing but eCS on your boot partition and all programs and utilities on another partition, in which case you would only need to use something like robosave to copy the desktop and then format the partition and then install the newer version and use roborestore to restore the desktop.

I am still not sure that there are any advantages in doing so because as far as I know there are no changes to the underlying OS/2 that eCS is based on, although there may be changes to some of the utilities but I would have thought they could be updated independent of the base OS. 

I may be wrong, but I understand that eCS has followed the windows idea of dumping everything - OS plus programs and utilities - onto a very large boot partition which makes the simple reformat/reinstall impossible and hence producing a lot of the problems we are reading about.  If that is your situation I feel sorry for you and I think no matter what you do you will be disappointed.

The system I described earlier has essentially been in use in my company since the days of OS/2  v1.2 with the main change being the ability of DFSee to create an image of a partition which has made a total restore of a workstation very easy.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2015, 06:32:41 pm »
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rysnc is not a complete backup solution

Please explain. RSYNC can, and does, make a mirror image of a drive, if you want it to. Every folder, and every file, is duplicated to the target location, if you don't eliminate some of the useless stuff. I will admit that doing a live boot drive doesn't work all that well, but data and programs work with no trouble.

FWIW, I take two approaches to backing up boot drives: 1) boot to an alternate boot system, and do it with RSync. 2) ZIP the whole boot drive. Since I don't allow programs, or data, to live on my boot drives, all I need to do is boot to an alternate boot system, format the "bad" drive, and unzip the backup. Done. I have done that a few times, with good results (just as good as what BackAgain/2000 does). The key is to have two boot drives, that share the programs and data drive(s), but that has many other advantages too.

Quote
the main change being the ability of DFSee to create an image of a partition which has made a total restore of a workstation very easy.

DFSEE is a great program, but here are two "problems" with a DFSEE backup: 1) A restore puts it back exactly the way it was, which is okay if it is exactly the same drive, so it fits properly. 2) You cannot extract individual files, or directories. It is all or nothing. ZIP can extract individual files, or directories, and it can restore to a completely different size volume, if you need to do that. I expect that RAR and ARJ can do the same.

roberto

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2015, 06:51:54 pm »
I think you mean eCS v2.0 to eCS v2.1.
Yes v2.0 to 2.1
It should be very simple if you have nothing but eCS on your boot partition and all programs and utilities on another partition,
This is not my case
Quote
in which case you would only need to use something like robosave to copy the desktop and then format the partition and then install the newer version and use roborestore to restore the desktop.
I do not know this robosaver -roborestore application theft, but understand that this is similar to a copy and restoration of INIS, desktop, and CFG. This is not a problem.
Quote
I am still not sure that there are any advantages in doing so because as far as I know there are no changes to the underlying OS/2 that eCS is based on, although there may be changes to some of the utilities but I would have thought they could be updated independent of the base OS. 

I may be wrong, but I understand that eCS has followed the windows idea of dumping everything - OS plus programs and utilities - onto a very large boot partition which makes the simple reformat/reinstall impossible and hence producing a lot of the problems we are reading about.  If that is your situation I feel sorry for you and I think no matter what you do you will be disappointed.
This is my problem !!, but I get the feeling that you have the same problem as me. When you install your system you have to pay close attention to where you install and do the hard work on the installation. I do it every time in update the system reinstalling all applications and reconfiguring everything.
So **I look for another option.**
I can ask you, where you have imported printer drivers? In the boot or on another drive.


roberto

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2015, 07:03:47 pm »
Here's a long list of backup solutions:
http://os2notes.duckdns.org/os2backups.html

Greggory
Thanks Gregory, but I want test zipboot  but i can not found. I see in hobbes and google, Do yuo have any link?

Greggory Shaw

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #10 on: November 26, 2015, 08:59:06 pm »
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rysnc is not a complete backup solution

Please explain. RSYNC can, and does, make a mirror image of a drive, if you want it to. Every folder, and every file, is duplicated to the target location, if you don't eliminate some of the useless stuff. I will admit that doing a live boot drive doesn't work all that well, but data and programs work with no trouble.

FWIW, I take two approaches to backing up boot drives: 1) boot to an alternate boot system, and do it with RSync. 2) ZIP the whole boot drive. Since I don't allow programs, or data, to live on my boot drives, all I need to do is boot to an alternate boot system, format the "bad" drive, and unzip the backup. Done. I have done that a few times, with good results (just as good as what BackAgain/2000 does). The key is to have two boot drives, that share the programs and data drive(s), but that has many other advantages too.


1) We're talking a running boot partition in this thread.

So, like I said and you said Rsync should not be used, and RAR also has problems.

2) Sure Zip does basically the same as BA/2000, but the scheduler and auto backups are seamless!

I basically forget about it all the time (but protected of all the time), and you said that you did the zip thing a couple of times?

Well, that's not a complete backup solution (regarding to a boot drive), if you have to think about it.

3) I recommended the best solution BA/2 and the easiest one Zipboot for a running Boot partition.

If I'm wrong please add any corrections or better solutions!

4) A lot of people don't have a second drive to mirror their boot drive to and/or another maintenance.

I have a maintenance, test install, and mirrored boot drive on the second drive - All of them are automatically backed up and zipped too.

And finally as for Rsync it chokes in a lot of situations, but I still use to backup my data drive to my servers because of the speed factor.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2015, 10:30:21 pm by Greggory Shaw »

Greggory Shaw

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2015, 09:40:06 pm »
Here's a long list of backup solutions:
http://os2notes.duckdns.org/os2backups.html

Greggory
Thanks Gregory, but I want test zipboot  but i can not found. I see in hobbes and google, Do yuo have any link?

It's in the RsyncBackup program, the link is on the backup page I posted.

You can use it stand alone and don't have to install RsycBackup

« Last Edit: November 26, 2015, 10:28:06 pm by Greggory Shaw »

Doug Bissett

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2015, 07:18:20 am »
Quote
and you said that you did the zip thing a couple of times?

Yes, at least half a dozen times. Most of them were using a ZIP file made from the active boot drive. Of course, a ZIP file from an inactive drive also works. I will note, that I do NOT allow normal software to be on the boot drive. The simple procedure is: boot to an alternate boot system (usually my previous eCS install), format the drive, and unzip the backup to it (I use the eCS Archive Viewer, for simplicity). Reboot, and make sure that it actually works (hasn't failed yet, for me). It may be necessary to use Sysinstx, under some conditions, but I haven't needed it (I only use JFS drives).

I also ZIP up my programs/data drive, as an alternate backup to what I do with RSync. I did do a test restore on one of my test systems, and it worked, but I haven't had to do it on a "live" system, yet (that ZIP file is a little over 12 GB, and it contains a 10 GB virtual disk file for VBox).

It has been about 5 years since I actually tried to restore a boot drive from a BA/2 backup. It didn't work (I was able to reproduce the problem, every time I tried it, on multiple systems), so I went looking for a better solution, and came up with ZIP. I do recommend the latest version, so it can handle files (in and out) that are larger than 2 GB. Boot drives probably don't need that, but it doesn't hurt. I also looked at ARJ, and RAR, but they were slow, and clumsy, compared to ZIP (ARJ seems to be better, IMO, but it has way too many parameters, most of which are completely useless). What ZIP/UNZIP needs is a front end so the user can do easy selection of files and directories, for backup and restore.

Quote
And finally as for Rsync it chokes in a lot of situations

Actually, it doesn't. I have reported a crash problem when there are invalid EAs on a file, and SHL says he will find a way to fix the problem (apparently it is something in the kernel that doesn't work right). ZIP has trouble with those files too. I still haven't figured out where the invalid EAs are coming from (I suspect EVFSGUI, but I can't prove it). Other than that, I haven't seen any problems with RSync, for a LONG time, and I use it a lot.

Joop

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Re: Is there any procedure to update configurations OS2 maintaining programs?
« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2015, 02:45:50 pm »
I use dSync/2 v.0.1.6z. You have to write a simple small script which tells the program what to do. I have subdirectories on the backup drive with the name and drive letter. In this way you can always see to what drive the backup belongs to. You can restore with a script, but you can also take a file manager like FC/2 to restore one file or the complete drive.
As a private user I backup every two months. If a drive is going wimpy then that drive is backupped more often as long as it is safe. If its becoming unsafe the drive is replaced. Restore is easy. There is still a small problem with dSync/2. If you have programs that run in dosbox then all the files  that the program touched are backupped every time, for some reason the backup bit is not set. Besides this small problem the program runs now for many years without problems.
Why this program? The only things you need are OS/2 with drive support  and this program which can be started from a floppy if needed. If things go terribly wrong you mostly don't have all the needed programs and have to start from scratch with minimal support. I have had this situation and this setup did work (for me).

xynixme

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Is there an utility which can repair damaged OS2*.INI files?

This time CHECKINI is not the answer. If there's one problem, then CHECKINI often tries to solve all derived issues. If INDEX.1 points to INDEX.2, INDEX.2 points to INDEX.3, and so on, but INDEX.1 may be missing, then CHECKINI may delete INDEX.3, index.4, and so on. What I want is that INDEX.1 points to INDEX.3. This is not the real problem, but it shows what I don't want.

In reality the desktop can be missing, settings will be lost, and so on, so I guess handles may be corrupted. Any change, like installing a new WPS object, corrupts the setup. CHECKINI and/or a restore a required frequently, for example after deleting a file. So is there a better INI file tool than CHECKINI. I can delete almost all objects, but of course that's a PITA.