btrfs restores busted saucy desktops

[ventrical]

I just wanted to start a new thread on btrfs file system format. I have been experimenting with it off and on and had done an upgrade to saucy from raring back a few weeks ago and used btrfs as the file format. A week and a half ago I installed apt-btrfs-snapshot and ran an undate/upgrade (several times) giving me a variety of snapshots to choose from.

Yesterday I updated and it busted my desktop. Lightdm and logon came up, but, after logon I got no desktop. Just mouse pointer. (Most likely a compiz problem). Rather than start removing and reconfiguring things I decided to 'rollback' and here I am typing from the rolled back snapshot !

Since the devs put "mir' to sleep for the desktop, I sort of got bored and so I am going to experiment with the other snapshots, meaning to say is that I am going to format a saucy system with btrfs and then try to insert the @snapshot onto that machine. Finally .. it's fun again

regards,
ventrical

[ventrical]

Here goes with another restore (err snapshot) point..

ventrical@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~$ sudo -i
[sudo] password for ventrical: 
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for ventrical: 
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~# apt-btrfs-snapshot list
Available snapshots:
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-02_10:46:21  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-06_09:46:26  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-06_10:08:59  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-10_15:33:10  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:35:56  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:35:59  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:36:01  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:36:02  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:15  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:16  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:18  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:19  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-17_09:13:48  
@apt-snapshot-2013-05-18_11:25:36
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~# ls -l /mnt/
total 0
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~# mount /dev/sda12 /mnt
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~# ls -l /mnt/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May  1 11:35 @
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May  1 11:35 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-02_10:46:21
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May  1 11:35 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-06_09:46:26
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May  1 11:35 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-06_10:08:59
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May  1 11:35 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-10_15:33:10
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:35:56
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:35:59
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:36:01
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:36:02
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:15
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:16
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:18
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:41:19
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May 10 15:47 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-17_09:13:48
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 230 May  1 11:35 @apt-snapshot-2013-05-18_11:25:36
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 216 May 17 09:29 @_badroot
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root  18 Mar 28 17:25 @home
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~# mv /mnt/@ /mnt/@_experiment
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~# mv /mnt/@apt-snapshot-2013-05-16_14:36:02 /mnt/@
root@ventrical-AcerAMD64bitDual:~#

[EgoGratis]

Interesting. I will have to start playing with this feature more when i will have more time.

I always liked this feature in btrfs...

[ventrical]

Just ran into a big problem. It appears that this procedure will not save the ccsm settings and/or knocks out Unity launcher - so I have a desktop with no panels but, oddly enough, the rotating cube works just great. I have 5 more snapshots to try .. but there was only one instance where I lost the desktop - not in the saved snapshots.

Edit:

Looks like the snapshots are not making it to grub. There seems to be a real bug with saucy - or something I am doing wrong. The current partition I am using is sda12 where the btrfs is mounted but the info suggests to use /sda1/ where I keep getting a file not found error of some sort.

It worked just fine on another hdd with raring using /sda1/ so I am not totally sure if btrfs is /sda1/ specific only atm ..

[ventrical]

Cannot copy a btrfs file to an ext4 filesystem because it does not support symlinks so I am going to format another hdd and use my USB bridge to copy a snapshot from a btrfs system to a btrfs system. Theoretically I should be able to 'rollup' as well as 'rollback', meaning to say that if I install raring or quantal with btrfs then I should be able to /insert/ that saucy snapshot because apt-btrfs-snapshot will actually think it is rolling back! This then would be a virtual model of a rolling release - roll ahead to the bleeding edge with the saftey of rolling back to a more stable plaform , even nostalgic snapshots of earlier Ubuntu.

[ventrical]

Synopsis:

Currently I was able to rollback to an earlier date within a Saucy install. I assume there is a bug (with saucy) because it seems to loose the Unity or Compiz config settings. I am able to load gnome-session fallback, create a new user and then Unity panel is back to normal in new user.

In raring , this did not pose a problem.

Secondly, the snapshots, (according to a lot of reading) are not in a format where one snapshot can be rolled forward on the back of an ealier release. This of course presents a problem. However, I think there is a way to slipstream and snapshot in using a little experiementation.

[ventrical]

This is not a problem with saucy , but, more a problem with the way I installed Saucy on a partition. The rules go somewhat like this:

1 Preliminary Note

In this tutorial I have installed the whole system on a btrfs file system, i.e., there's no separate /boot partition on an ext file system. If you use a separate /boot partition and apt installs anything in that partition (like a new kernel), you cannot undo changes to the /boot partition with apt-btrfs-snapshot- only changes on the btrfs partition can be reverted.

and this is from -

http://www.howtoforge.com/rollback-t...n-ubuntu-12.10

Now I am not 100% sure if this is the case but I am experimenting further with that assumption in mind. My next logical step would be to do a clean install of Saucy on a single drive with btrfs only excluding any other partition.

[grahammechanical]

In this tutorial I have installed the whole system on a btrfs file system, i.e., there's no separate /boot partition on an ext file system. If you use a separate /boot partition and apt installs anything in that partition (like a new kernel), you cannot undo changes to the /boot partition with apt-btrfs-snapshot- only changes on the btrfs partition can be reverted.

That would make logical sense, Mr Spock. What I am wondering is, does Grub read a btfs file system? When I tried installing Ubuntu with btrfs I got an "Executing 'grub-install' /dev/asda failed" error.

I also tried (this with Quantal) installing on Ext4 and then converting to btrfs. Update-grub (on another Ubuntu) detected the new installation but booting to it from Grub gave "error no such device uuid blah, blah" with a dump at an intramfs prompt.

All of which caused me to wonder if Grub can read a btrfs file system. It is illogical to think that installing Ubuntu + btrfs as the only OS on a hard disk would succeed where having more than one OS does not succeed. <raised eyebrow>

Has anyone worked out there has recently been a rerun on UK TV of the Star trek movies?

Live long and prosper.

[ronacc]

this looks interesting , as soon as I get my test box back up ( failed mobo ) I'll try a "pure" btrfs install . at present I'm stuck with running the daily live session .

Live long and prosper .

[ventrical]

@gramhammechanical

I had a working system in raring (if you look at other thread) with Grub. It was originally ext4. I had Quantal on it and then did a "install alongside' of raring (btrfs) and it worked fine. I was even able to roll back from raring to quantal but I really had to fanagle with the configuration - meaning that I had to remove apt-btrfs-snapshot at a certain point and then reinstall it. Of course it failed initially but Grub Rescue disk slavaged it and it was a good restore. However, I have been reading other subjects on the matter and I noted that some threads indicate that GruB and BTrfs are not a good idea.

'To infinity and beyond !'