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GNU/Linux Laptop – Slackware
2018/11/28
GNU/Linux Laptop – Slackware
Test the default installation of a popular GNU/Linux distribution, in this case, Slackware 14.2.
I have been installing Linux since 1995. I have been formally trained in UNIX administration. I have developed all sorts of installation and usage habits which are of no interest to ordinary people who might be tempted to install Linux. The install instructions for my regular computers show all sorts of customizations I like to do.
I want to know how easy it is for an ordinary mortal to install Linux. I will do a standard installation. I will customize only if something important is missing. I will not use vi.1 I will use the editor nano if absolutely necessary, but I will use easily located graphical administration tools whenever possible.
The OS is Slackware 14.2, downloaded from Slackware’s website, 2018/02/11 The installation was on 2018/11/06.
This document is copyright © 2018 by Howard Gibson. You may post this on web pages and bulletin boards free of charge. All other rights are reserved.
GNU/Linux is Free Software. Your computer should not be encumbered by copyrights and Digital Rights Management (DRM). Proprietary software publishers are trying so hard to prevent unathorized copying that they can prevent you from installing and using copies you purchased, and are authorized to use. Also, if you cannot run the application you used to create your data, you don’t own your data!
GNU/Linux is not hard to install on most computers. The latest “bleeding edge” video and sound cards may give you trouble. If you are buying a new computer, you should do some research on the hardware. If your computer is older, GNU/Linux should have all the drivers you need. You need to research GNU/Linux support on printers and scanners. Not everything works.
A basic GNU/Linux install will include some very good graphics programs, particularly GIMP, a good substitute for Adobe Photoshop. Just about every programming tool is available for GNU/Linux, except for the proprietary Microsoft ones like Visual Basic and C#.
GNU/Linux can run efficiently on older, slower computers, because you can select smaller, faster user interfaces and applications. Install the window managers XFCE and LXDE. Libre Office is a credible alternative to Microsoft Office because it is just about as bloated as Microsoft Office. Try the word processor AbiWord, and the spreadsheet Gnumeric. You could learn to use LaTeX, whose files are edited with a text editor.2
GNU/Linux is less capable at video games and multimedia. There are lots of Free Software computer games out there, but the best stuff is commercial and proprietary. Few publishers support GNU/Linux.
The big problem with GNU/Linux and multi-media is ideological. Most media formats are proprietary. GNU and Linux are the work of Free Software people, who are reluctant to support proprietary formats. If you spend an hour or so surfing GNU.org, you will understand who you are dealing with. The GNU “Copyleft” really is a copyright. All copyrights are supported by the Free Software community.
GNU/Linux can be made to support multi-media. I watch YouTube and Netflix on my GNU/Linux box. I can watch most commercial DVDs. Don’t expect the Free Software community to knock itself out to help you.
For more information on the thinking behind Free Software, just follow the links. You can get support for most media formats. Just search Google for Linux multi-media support.
Slackware is the very first GNU/Linux distribution I ever installed, back in 1995. This installation gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia. I loved seeing the fortune cookie, and being able to select a cool console font. If only the Open Windows desktop was still available…
Slackware 14.2 does not have a user friendly installer. It is not idiot resistant. There is no convenient GUI3 support for wireless networking, Bluetooth, or the firewall. The GUI does not launch by default. You have to update configuration files to change default run levels. There is no GUI support for user accounts. For most people, these are do-not-install-Slackware issues. Slackware is not suitable for a non-hacker laptop. Non-hacker desktops should be kept behind firewalls.
Software companies who support Linux, provide Debian and Red Hat packages, which work on Ubuntu and Fedora, respectively. Slackware is not supported.
This is too bad, since Slackware does some things rather well. I really like not having to set up the Fortune Cookie. I like setting up the user accounts my way. Slackware installs GIMP by default. I don’t understand why the other distributions don’t. Slackware installs lots of programming stuff by default. I did not test to see how extensive this was.
A very nasty difference between Slackware and Fedora in particular, is that your hard drive gets reformatted early in the installation. A Fedora installation does not touch your hard drive until you finally hit the install button. This protects your hard drive. Less obviously, you spend significantly more time in a Slackware installation, waiting for hard drives to format. With Fedora, you quickly set up your installation, and you wait for one long process.
Download install ISO images from the internet. These can be burned to DVDs, or copied to USB sticks. New computers generally do not have DVDs or Blue-rays. There are instructions on the internet for creating bootable USB sticks from ISO files.
If you are interested in Linux, buy one of the books. You get documentation, and you support the community. David Clinton’s and Christopher Negus’ Ubuntu Bible continues to be updated as of 2021. I cannot find a Linux Bible or a Fedora Bible less than ten years old. I have not seen these in a book store lately. They can be ordered online. Make sure you are buying something recent. There are lots of older books for sale.
If you are buying a new hard drive for an old computer, you need to read the following carefully.
New computers are being shipped with GPT formatted hard drives, and motherboards that can use them. GPT is a more advanced disk format. Among other things, it allows many more primary partitions. The old MBR format4 only allows four. For my Fedora 26 install onto my new hard drive, this was a very nasty surprise. My Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 Version 1.1, motherboard5 did not work with my new hard drive, a Western Digital WD2003FZEX-0. The installed system showed the boot screens, then “Loading Operating System ...”, then it stopped. After a week of futile hacking, I bought a new 2TB hard drive, and now everything works! the WD drive now is my /archive drive. It works. I just cannot boot from it.
If you are installing Linux on an old clunker computer and an old drive, you should have no problems. If you are installing Linux on a new computer with a new, GPT capable motherboard and GPT formatted drive, you should have no problems. The fun starts when you replace the hard drive on your old clunker.
If you are buying a new hard drive for your old computer, ask questions at the store. My non-functional drives were from Western Digital. My functional drive is from Seagate.
A crude rule of thumb is that if your “new” machine is working with whatever operating system you have, your Linux install will work.
This is a Lenovo Thinkpad T400. I purchased it second hand at Laptops for Less, at 3358 Lakeshore Blvd, in Etobicoke, Ontario.
The machine has a double density DVD burner, an Ethernet connection, and three USB ports.
Lenovo Thinkpad Model 6475GZ5, Serial Number R8-GEFYN 09/11
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P8400 2.26GHz
It came with 4GB, in the form of two 2048MB DDR3 SD-RAM.
ATA HDD0: Hitachi HTS723216L9SA60-(S1) listed at 160GB.
ATAPI CD0: Matshita DVD-RAM UJ862A-(S2)
Intel HD graphics with up to 1.6 GB of shared video memory. This supports an external monitor 1920x1200 16 million colours.
14.1” 1280x800, and 16 million colours
Realtek codec ALC269 with 2-channel High-Definition (HD) audio
Protocols & Specifications: ITU V.90, Max Transfer Rate: 56.0Kbps, Features: V.92 upgradable.
This is a “soft” modem requiring drivers, as opposed to a hardware modem that just works. Linux drivers probably are available, but they are not Free Software. When was the last time you used a modem?
I have gotten these modems working way back in the distant past.
Laptop keyboard with touch-pad and nipple. Cool! Also, there are two sets of mouse buttons. The buttons near the nipple include a middle button. With the X Windows System graphical user interface, this is very good indeed.
Oh oh!
1.3 megapixels with digital microphone. This camera has an LED that goes on when the camera is running.
Gnome comes with something called cheese to operate webcams.
I have tried running cheese remotely, using another computer as the display. It could not find a device. This is good. We do not want the webcam running remotely.
Recent articles in the news show that webcams and impressionable young girls are a bad combination. I don’t have a young girl, impressionable or otherwise, so there is no problem for me. I will refrain from taking my clothes off when asked. I promise!
Facebook is being blamed for recent teen suicides. Facebook does not have a live “please take your clothes off” feature. I suspect that the real culprit is Skype, which is available for GNU/Linux.
Like all other web-enabled devices, the webcam in your daughter’s bedroom will be inaccessible to the internet if it does not exist. My newer Lenovo laptop does not have a webcam.
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Atheros XSPAN BGN (802.11BGN) wireless
Bluetooth V2.1 technology
Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g/n (draft), Bluetooth 2.0, Network Interface: Gigabit Ethernet
6-cell Lithium ion
I have replaced this with a higher capacity battery, which give me a lifespan of around four and a half hours.
ExpressCard/54
I have replaced this machine with a newer, faster laptop. This now is a play toy.
Newer machines all are 64 bit. GNU/Linux is a good way to extend the functional life of older machines. Google Chrome is available for GNU/Linux in 64 bit, only.
I will treat this as a user’s primary computer. The machine must have email and web surfing tools, as well as a Microsoft Windows compatible office suite. The ability to read and to save files in Microsoft DOCX, XLSX and PPTX is necessary.6
The user may have a family, and they may want to create extra accounts.
Programming is not necessary, but I will look at this as an option. A home computer, as opposed to this laptop, may be used as a central file server. I will look into this, too.
This machine is a laptop. I expect it to be transported out of the home, and connected to the internet in coffee shops, and in schools and colleges.7 Even if the machine is kept at home, it may be plugged directly into an internet modem. Wireless routers act as firewalls, but not everybody has one. We will activate and test the firewall.
If your laptop gets stolen, the best thing you can have is an encrypted hard drive. The bad guy will have your hardware, but your data will not be accessible. An encrypted installation is not necessary for a desktop or server that stays at home, but this is a laptop.
GNU/Linux installers break the hard drive up into separate partitions.
There are two important issues with partitioning. I assume you plan to use your computer for a fairly long time. Eventually, you will want to re-install GNU/Linux to get a more advanced version, or perhaps, a different distribution.
You need a root partition large enough to hold the newer version of the OS.
You do not want to harm your /home partition. This is where all of your data will be stored.
Slackware recommend a swap partition.
| Device | Memory | Filesystem |
| root | 40GB | ext4 |
| swap | 20GB | swap |
| /home | 100GB | ext4 |
| 160GB | ||
We will not bother with the traditional /usr/local partition this time.
There are two ways to administer UNIX/Linux. You can have a root account, or you can use sudo.
Historically, UNIX type systems are installed with a super user account called root. This account has complete write access to everything on the computer. This is dangerous. Good practise is not use this account for anything other than system administration. When you are logged in as a regular user, your ability to damage your system is drastically reduced.
When you open any sort of UNIX/Linux terminal or shell, you are prompted by a text string ending in a dollar sign, $.8
When you log in as root, the prompt changes to a pound sign, #, also called a hash sign in the computer world. This is a sign of danger. The hash sign says you are root, and that you can trash the system if you are not careful.
An alternate approach for all this is to not have a root account. A group of users are designated as administrators. To issue a root command, they go…
$ sudo nano /etc/group
The system prompts for the user password. The resulting increased access continues for several minutes.
This is used on MacOS, Ubuntu and now, Fedora. I would prefer to keep the root account. When I am logged in as root, I can see the hash sign, and I know there is a threat. On a single user machine, like mine, sudo makes administration easier, and reduces the number of strong passwords I need to track. This may be one of those six of one, half dozen other issues.
The files you download from the distribution websites are ISO files. These are used to create potable DVDs or USB sticks. I find DVDs easier to manage. If your machine lacks a DVD reader, you will have to search the internet to find out how to install an ISO image onto your USB stick. The ISO for Ubuntu 16.04.5, 32bit, is 1.6GB. Any cheap old USB stick will work. If your computer will not boot from USB, you will have to pick up a USB DVD reader.
This document is written mostly with the text editor vim, a version of vi. This is an extremely efficient and productive editor once you learn it, especially if you are a touch typist, like me. It is especially efficient with large documents, since you can navigate by doing the text seaches through the command line. It is the text editor of UNIX and Linux geeks everywhere. Unfortunately, it is mindbogglingly not user friendly.
Linux newbies need to try something else. You need a text editor that runs in a terminal session. You don’t always have the X Window System running when you do administration.
The text editor nano, is available and strongly recommended. You navigate around the text file using the arrow keys, just like you think it should. It has a CTRL key menu at the bottom of the screen.
When you are told to edit configuration files, use nano.
I am plugging this thing into the network because Slackware’s wireless support is not good. I will try to make it work once I have everything installed.
Insert your DVD and boot the computer.
The “boot” window comes up immediately. The machine will boot on its own if you leave it, but you can hit [Enter].
Slackware is loaded off the DVD. There is no X11R6 graphical user interface. You are prompted for a keyboard map. I hit [Enter] again.
We are now in the Slackware login window. Type root, and hit [Enter].
I am informed that to partition my hard drive, I must use the command cfdisk or fdisk. To install, I must run the command setup.
Type cfdisk, then hit [Enter].
You should see a partitioning table, showing partitions, and free space.
Delete any existing partitions.
Select [New].
As per our partitioning scheme, type 40G, for 40GB.
Select [Primary].
Make the partition [Bootable].
Select the “Free space” line, and select [New].
Type 20G, and [Primary].
Still on that line, select [Type].
Select “82 Linux swap”.
Select the “Free space” line and [New].
Accept 89.1G for approximately 100GB, and make it [Primary]. The table should look like this, excluding the sectors.
| Device | Boot | Size | Id | Type |
| /dev/sda1 | * | 40G | 83 | Linux |
| /dev/sda2 | * | 20G | 82 | Linux swap |
| /dev/sda3 | * | 89.1G | 83 | Linux |
This is your last chance to not wipe out whatever is on your hard drive.
Select [Write]. It asks if you are sure. It expects you to type out the full word “yes”. Do so.
Select [Quit]. It claims it quit without writing to the partition table, but your partition table has been written to. You can check this by running cfdisk again.
We are back on the Slackware command line. Type setup.
The “Slackware Linux Setup” windows comes up. Go ahead and read the Help file.
Select ADDSWAP.
It gives you the choice of /dev/sda2. Hit [OK]. You can check for bad blocks while formatting the swap partition. This takes a while. Hit [OK] when it is done.
Now it wants you to select a root partition. Select /dev/sda1.
You can select the quick format. I selected Check for a slow format, checking for bad blocks. I selected the file system ext4. Again, formatting takes a while.
Now, select /dev/sda3, [Check] and ext4, and then wait again.
When it prompts you for where you want the partition mounted, type in /home.
When it shows you the table for /etc/fstab, hit [Enter].
When you are asked to select install media, select your CD or DVD.
I told it to scan for the CD/DVD. It found it at /dev/sr0.
For package selection, I selected everything except international language support. This is the default setting. I hit [OK].
Under “Select Prompting Mode”, I selected Full.
The install begins. It takes around 20 minutes. All sorts of interesting text goes scrolling by, too fast to read.
At the end, you are prompted for a boot USB stick. What the heck. 4GB USB sticks are cheap.
[Continue] the configuration.
Select a Simple lilo installation.
Use standard frame butter console.
You can append things to the lilo command line. I did not bother.
Use UTF-8 text console? [No].
I installed LILO to MBR.9 MBR is the default selection. Note how I have made the partition bootable.
I was asked to configure a mouse. I used the default selection of [imps2], Microsoft PS/2 Intellimouse.
Do I want to run gpm at boot time? [Yes].
Configure my network? [Yes].
I entered my hostname Lenovo.
I entered by local domain name rev.
My configuration type is [DHCP]. This should work with my wireless router.
I don’t have a DHCP Hostname.
I confirmed my network setup by selecting [Yes].
When asked about start-up services, I turned on rc.cups. I left everything else as it was.
I want to try screen fonts. You want something that draws borders around console windows. I like scrawl_w.fng.gz!
Your hardware clock should be set to UTC.
I set my timezone to America/Toronto.
Slackware does not support Gnome. The fancy window manager is KDE. I selected the smaller, faster Xfce.
I set root’s password.
I can now reboot my system!
Back in the Slackware Linux Setup menu, select [Exit].
There is a big Slackware screen. Below, there is text asking you what OS to boot. Hit [Enter].
When the system finishes booting, you are in a text window, not the X Window System. The only user account on the system is root’s.
Log in as root. Let’s explore the system a bit.
When you log in, the system prints a joke. This is the fortune cookie. It has been installed, This feature must be installed and configured on most other GNU/Linuxes.
The text editor nano has been installed. This also is very good. The old vi editor is a nasty thing to spring on a newbie.
You have some.
At the command line type…
# alpine
Alpine is an adequately user friendly, command line email tool. There is a command menu at the bottom of the screen. You can read the emails Slackware has sent you!
There is a command adduser, but configuring the user files is not very difficult.
Type the following command. Note pound sign (#) prompt. You are logged in as root. Be very, very careful.
# cat /etc/group
The command cat prints text file contents to the screen. Towards the bottom of the output, you will see the line…
users:x:100:
Slackware assumes that all users should belong to one group. I like this concept.10 Now, we are going to add a user named “howard”.
# nano /etc/passwd
The text editor nano has a command menu at the bottom of the screen. At the bottom, you should see the line…
nobody:x:99:99:nobody:/:/bin/false
Move to the line and cut it using [CTRL-K]. Go [CTRL-U] twice, recovering the line, and adding a copy. Edit the second line as follows…
howard:x:1000:100:Howard Gibson:/home/howard:/bin/bash
| Code | Function |
| howard | User’s login name |
| x | Password placeholder. |
| 1000 | User number |
| 100 | User’s group number. This is users as shown above. |
| Howard Gibson | The user’s actual name |
| /home/howard | The user’s home directory |
| /bin/bash | The user’s command shell. |
Way, way back in the past, the users’ encrypted passwords were stored in /etc/passwd. This turned out to be a security hole, and it is no longer done.
# nano /etc/shadow
This is where the encrypted passwords are stored now. This file has way tighter security than /etc/passwd.
Copy the line nobody:*:9797:0:::::, and change the second “nobody” to “howard”.
Now, to create the user directory…
# mkdir /home/howard # chown howard /home/howard # chgrp users /home/howard # chmod 755 /home/howard # passwd howard # ls -l /home
We created the directory /home/howard. This is located on the /home partition. We set howard as the owner of the directory. We set users at the group of the directory. We set the file permissions on /home/howard to read, write, execute for howard, and read, execute for everyone else.11 The last thing we do is list /home. You should see a directory called howard, owned by howard and by the group users.
Do this for each and every user you want on your system.
I am showing you here how the disk drive got partitioned. There is no need for you to do this.
The following output was done immediately after installing GNU/Linux, The command fdisk can wipe out everything on your hard drive, so use it with extreme caution. Here, I read the partition table, then I exited without saving anything. I see no reason why an ordinary user should run fdisk.12
In Slackware, the X Windows System is not activated by default. We want it activated.
# nano /etc/inittab
Look for the following lines…
# Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6) id:3:initdefault:
Change the 3 to a 4…
# Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6) id:4:initdefault:
Run level 3 is multi-user mode. Run level 4 launches the X-Window System.
# reboot
When it reboots, you will have a graphical screen, and you can log into your new account.
Slackware’s default window manager is KDE. I could have sworn I selected Xfce. Maybe I didn’t. Let’s explore KDE.
There is an icon bar across the bottom of the screen, just like on the screen of a certain Redmond, Washington based OS supplier.
You can see the Firefox browser icon on the icon bar. Click on it to launch Firefox.
There is sort of a globe/gear sort of thing that turns out to be the Konqueror “web browser”. Konqueror is KDE’s answer to Microsoft Internet Explorer in that it is a browser and a file manager.
Now, we look for an office suite. Click the KDE icon at the bottom left hand side of the icon bar. Click the Applications button. Select Office. Select Words or Spreadsheet. What you get is Calligra, not Libre or Open Office. Calligra uses the same Open Document format that Libre and Open Office use. I have not played extensively with Calligra. It seems to work. I don’t know how compatible it is with Microsoft Word. Libre and Open Office both are pretty good.
I went looking throught the graphics applications, and I found GIMP. If you have a camera, you need GIMP. I don’t understand why Ubuntu and Fedora do not install this by default. Advantage Slackware.
I like command line terminals. There is a terminal icon on the icon bar, so I clicked it. Yes, it is a command line terminal. To make the fortune cookie work, I need to configure this thing as a login terminal. I cannot find the configuration for this anyway. Rats!
I meant to use this as the default desktop. On the login window where you type in your name and password, there are two buttons at the bottom left hand. Click on the down-arrow icon, and select Xfce Session.
Xfce is a lightweight window manager. I don’t like fancy window managers. I want to use CPU cycles and RAM for my applications. On older, slower computers, I strongly recommend lightweight window managers like Xfce or LXDE.
Xfce’s icon bar is at the top of the screen. There is an “Applications” icon at the left hand side. Over on the right hand side, you see four rectangles, which we will look at later.
Pull down the Applications menu. The web browser is Firefox. The email tool is Thunderbird.
Launch the terminal. Click on Edit. Click on Preferences. Click on Run command as login shell. The next time you launch this terminal, you will get the fortune cookie!
Otherwise, you get the same applications as with KDE.
Launch Firefox. Look at the four boxes on the right hand side. A Firefox icon appears in one of the boxes. Click on one of the other boxes. Pull down the Applications menu, select Office, and Calligra Words. One of the boxes now has a Firefox icon, and another has a Calligra Words icon. You can select windows by clicking on the boxes. This is the X Windows pager. Most X11 window managers do this.
Slackware installs a whole bunch of window managers.
Default
Custom
Blackbox
FVWM
I have been using FVWM since 1996, and I have it set up exactly the way I like it. Setting it up will take some time and research.
Fluxbox
KDE Plasma Workspace
Described above.
KDE Plasma Workspace (failsafe session)
MWM
Motif, I think. This was an important window manager back in the 90s.
TWM
Tab Window Manager. This is very old.
WindowMaker
Xfce Session
I recommend this. It is described above.
Failsafe
Have fun exploring all this.
On any machine not located behind a firewall, this is absolutely critical. Slackware does not have a graphical firewall tool.
There is a lot of security information here…
https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:security:basic\_security
I followed the instructions and got a firewall installed, but did not test it thoroughly. The secure shell daemon (ssh) allowed me to log in remotely. I activated the Apache web server (httpd), and I accessed it remotely, i.e., through the firewall.
To run a networked service like ssh or httpd, you have to do two things. You have to run the service, and you have to allow it through the firewall. For security purposes, you must close the firewall. Even if the service is not running, the hacker sees the open port, and knows that there is a hackable machine.
If you want to manually set up your firewall, you can read the web page above, and read up on iptables. You can go to Gibson13 Research at https://grc.com and test your firewall using their Shields Up feature.
Slackware configures your wired network at installation. There is no graphical configuration.
There is no graphical support for wireless or for Bluetooth. Slackware is not a suitable OS for a laptop.
From Xfce, I pulled down the Applications menu, I located Settings, and then Manage Printing. The “Print Settings” window gave me the option of adding a printer. I clicked on this. I was prompted for root’s password. I followed the prompts, and Slackware found my network printer and installed it.
I did a quick search for cc, g++, make, perl, python, ruby, and f77 (Fortran). I found them. Slackware is a programming platform.
Software vendors who support GNU/Linux, support Debian (Ubuntu) and Red Hat (Fedora). They mostly do not support Slackware. Slackware’s website provides instructions for installing Google-Chrome from Debian .deb files.
If you want to install games and other software, you need a different GNULinux distribution.
Back in the day, we installed software by downloading, compiling and installing from the source code. It was a fairly reliable process, although often it required some programming skill. Slackware comes with a lot of programming tools, so this may still often work. I did not test it. As the interesting applications get more complicated, installations from source are less and less likely to work. Software updates are a lot of work this way.
Slackware lacks convenient tools for wireless and for firewall configuration. Slackware is not a good GNU/Linux distribution for your laptop. You need to keep this thing behind a firewall, where fancy security procedures are not needed.
There is no point in lining your hat with aluminium foil.
You need a strategy for backing up your hard drive.
I have had an administered, backed up hard drive since 1996. I was taking some college courses, and getting involved in a ski club in 1998. My emails and working files are still on my hard drive, although I used at least one commercial application I cannot get working at the moment.
The primary threat to my data has been me stupidly deleting things, sometimes realizing this months later. My primary hard drive has died on me. I lost no data.
At present, I have two backup devices on my primary computer, a 4 terabyte hard drive, and a Blue-ray burner. My automatic nightly backup is done to the 4TB drive. Periodically, I copy my latest backup to a double density Blue-ray disk, which has a capacity of 50GB. These are stored in my house, away from my computer. If I really wanted to be thorough, I could rent a safety deposit box at the bank, and store my backup Blue-rays there.
Optical disks, like Blue-rays, are disappearing off of new computers. I am concerned that it will become hard to find Blue-ray disks, especially the double density ones. I love Blue-rays because the individual disks are cheap, and suitable for single use. I have recovered data months after having deleted it.
The Blue-ray requires me to limit the disk space I use. My biggest directories are my digital photo directory, and my email, which is archived at least back to 1997. I archive my digital photos to DVD. I am not intensively doing graphical design, or engineering CAD.
The Cloud is an excellent resource for temporary sharing of information. As a long-term backup of information with security issues, it is risky. Ask yourself why such a service is provided free. Assume that data uploaded to a free server is being scanned. Can you say “data mining”? An NDA14 will be worthless when the owners of the server go out of business, and the bailiff sells their equipment to the highest bidder.
Consider how you store your backup media at home. If you are concerned about security, you should store your backups in a locked cabinet or a safe. Once your backup has been transported to another Linux machine, it is accessible to whoever has that root access.
You can encrypt your backups, but this makes it more difficult to do recoveries. I try to avoid compressing my backups, because this takes time, and it can introduce data errors.
I may have to switch to portable USB drives. Tape drives still are available, and they have huge capacity. The tapes do not appear to be particularly cheap.
Maybe you will need to do this.
I was having some problems with an install, and I decided to mount my USB stick. During the install routine, this is fairly easy. Hit ctrl+alt+f4. Log in as root. You should not need a password. Insert your USB stick. You will see a gibberish message on the screen with something like /dev/sdb. This is your USB device. You need to create a file system as a mount point, then mount your stick.
# mdkir /usb # mount /dev/sdb1 -o auto /usb
The mount command, above, specifies the device. Note that it is /dev/sdb1, not /dev/sdb. The -o auto tells Fedora to figure out the file system type. You could specify vfat, which probably is what it is, but why?
Now, you can copy files, or back up data. See my article on the UNIX Command Line.
Now, you need to get back to your installation window. On Fedora and Ubuntu, ctrl+alt+f1 should do it. Anything up to ctrl+alt+f7 will produce a terminal.