Very Computer

not sure if this is quite the correct forum, but it's fairly close and
i've gotten some real good help so far here :)

i have an old x486 desktop, and an even older x486 laptop, both
running linux.  the laptop's hard drive is making spooky noises, so
i've backed up lotsa files into a few .tar.gz files.  i would like to
copy those files over to my 'new' computer.

1.)  if i put several .tar.gz files into directory 'bkup', does it
make sense to 'tar -czf bkup.tar.gz' or maybe 'tar -cf bkup.tar' ?

2.)  how do i 'cp' a 16+ megabyte .tar or .tar.gz file onto floppies?

i was thinking of using two floppies.  turn on both machines, and just
rotate them around. copy part of the .tar file onto floppy 'a', then
put floppy 'a' into the second machine, while floppy 'b' gets more
files, if that makes sense. or maybe just use one floppy, that might
be less confusing.

any ideas?  can i use a serial cable somehow?

If you want to, don't let me stop you....

Quote:> 2.)  how do i 'cp' a 16+ megabyte .tar or .tar.gz file onto floppies?

man split.

Quote:> any ideas?  can i use a serial cable somehow?

That would be half a sensible option. How about you start a getty on ttyS0
(man inittab, man getty), on *one* of the boxes, then run minicom against
it, and do a Zmodem upload?
If push really comes to shove and you cba doing this, then there's nothing
to stop you doing
   tar cvpfz - bigfiles | uuencode somefilename > /dev/ttyS0
on one end, and
   uudecode < /dev/ttyS0 ; tar xvpfz somefilename
on the other... :)

~Tim
--

Sometimes you're the statue.                | http://piglet.is.dreaming.org

You'd need what's called a null modem cable, which cross-connects some
of the signals from one end to the other.  You can also use a parallel
port cable, which would be faster.  Take a look at the PLIP mini howto.

Dave

just tar -cf ../bkup.tar, since the tarballs therein are already
gzipped.

Quote:>2.)  how do i 'cp' a 16+ megabyte .tar or .tar.gz file onto floppies?

A dozen floppies, yecch.  You can always dd to and from /dev/fd0, using the
count= , skip= and seek= arguments to extract pieces and put them back
in place at the receiving end.  Woe to you if your floppies have
dropouts.

Quote:>any ideas?  can i use a serial cable somehow?

Sure, you'll need a null-modem.  Create a ppp account on one of
the laptops, connect from the other and ftp the files.  At 115200bps
you get ~11kB/s, so 16 megs will take you... about a half hour.
And you don't have to be there the whole time.

You don't say what distribution you have, but my aging RH 5.2 box
had all the instructions I needed in /usr/doc/ppp*/README.linux .
Moved to /usr/share/doc/... in newer distributions.

Another possibility: a getty on one end, minicom on the other, and
zmodem to transport the files.
--
Pierre Asselin
Westminster, Colorado

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