Initially, how many times did you bork your system, beyond your repair?

[mikodo]

I started with computers almost 5 years ago, and Ubuntu and greater Linux 4 years ago. Feeling a need to try other things, I borked my Ubuntu install beyond my repair, probably at least 10 times over the first two years. I would often stay up for 20 hours on a weekend putting things back to shape again. My wife who can't turn on a computer, has made comparisons to me, with our children/grandchildren who use windows exclusively. She thinks I am inept. LOL. Maybe I am, but I have learned. Now, I don't bork my important stuff anymore, which is always well backed up, because I will inevitably need it.

That's my story. How about you guys?

[Frogs Hair]

I have re-installed without needing to due to panic and not spending enough time trying to solve problems I created mainly by fooling around with ppas . :o Example , removal of one dependency wipes out the entire desktop .

[mikodo]

One of things that I borked initially, were grub instances when installing and un-installing different distros, which made me be careful to have grub updated on my primary install. Boot Repair fixed things for me once, too.

[Bashing-om]

OK, I also admit that several times while getting comfortable with this operating system I have borked it up beyond my then ability to repair !

Since I do that ... (still !) I have learned to have good backups, and a liveDVD, and an operational standby operating system (12.04). From (re-)install I can be back up and operational in 30 minutes or less ... ain't scripts wonderful !



ubuntu, don't get no better than that

[ajgreeny]

The first time I attempted to use (unsuccessfully) the xorg-edgers ppa and totally borked my GUI was long before I had any competence with the command line, and the only way that I was capable of repairing the system was a complete re-install. Luckily, of course, that is very quick with Ubuntu, so I was up and running again in about 20 mins, plus extra time for updates and added packages.

If it happened now I would just deal with it all very quickly and easily without having to start again from scratch, which is one of the delights of Linux; try doing that in Windows, which I have not really used since 2005 when I first tried, and loved, ubuntu.

[Sly14Cat]

Well I've had my system for a year and I've finally borked it a few days ago. Apparently trying to triple boot with Mageia isn't exactly a good idea. Especially when it clumps your other partitions together.. And then you try to remove mageia... And it clumps your entire harddrive together... And you have to reformat it #-o

Yep that was the best saturday evening ever

[Bashing-om]

but Sly14Cat ! Look what you learned ...ya gotta love it .



you break it you fix it

[CharlesA]

Broken RAID array after trying to figure out which slot in a (brand new) drive cage was acting up.

Well, not totally broken, but I had one drive rebuilding and one saying it was bad...

Google-fu ftw!

As far as reinstalls go.. not often. I think I've only done reinstalls when i've had major problems and/or move distros/versions.

[nothingspecial]

This has been mentioned elsewhere but I reinstalled a few times trying to fix a sound problem when the issue was that I had the speakers plugged into the wrong hole :/

[eriktheblu]

I've never messed up Ubuntu to the point it was unusable (just to where reinstall was easier). Windows on the other hand has borked itself to that extent plenty of times.

[BR8]

I've used Mint for about half a year and my family's PC has run Xubuntu for about a month and I'm still fine. Now it's looking as though it's a simple matter of time.

[Max Blyss]

Probably 5 or so the first few months, lol... Once or twice since then. Now in my 3rd year of Linux use.

[dimbulb1024]

Hmm ... I think just a few times. The first was when I originally tried to install Ubuntu as a dual boot with Windows way back when. After that, maybe just a couple times after messing with system files.

As others have said, mainly when I did a re-install, I was messing with the system, kind of messed up the install and it was just easier to re-install than go back and try to fix what I did.

Anymore, I really don't mess with the system like I did in the beginning, but if I do have to re-install, as others have once again mentioned, it's a breeze.

[Irihapeti]

I remember changing all the permissions in /usr on one occasion.

On another, I somehow managed to delete everything in the top two directories. Meaning kernel and everything. :oops:

[CharlesA]

chmod -R is dangerous...

[Irihapeti]

chmod -R is dangerous...

As I discovered. :oops:

I also made the mistake of thinking that everything in /usr belongs to root. Which it does NOT.

[CharlesA]

As I discovered. :oops:

I also made the mistake of thinking that everything in /usr belongs to root. Which it does NOT.

I did not know that.

[Irihapeti]

I did not know that.

Not many don't, of course, but enough to break things. If you change the group as well, it's much worse.

[wildmanne39]

I have done it a couple of times where it was easier to reinstall then spend days trying to find a way to fix it but anymore I do all my experiementing in virtualbox so I do not break my production machine.:)

[prodigy_]

I broke my Linux installs twice but that was before Ubuntu.

[buzzingrobot]

In Ye Olden Dayes, far too often. But, that was almost par for the course then. Things could go blooie in the normal course of events.

These days, not very often at all. Video drivers, both FOSS and proprietary, cause problems very infrequently. And, then, they're easily resolved. This machine has a wired ethernet connection and no wireless card, so I have no wireless hassles.

The one thing in wide use that I think causes many breakages is the habit of dependency resolvers to "hook" core system packages when some large package collections are installed. When you try to remove that large package, you find it may also remove many core system packages, breaking your system.

I ran into this recently when I installed Gnome 3.8 on 13.04. When I removed it with apt, much of Unity was also removed.

We need finer-grained package tools to prevent this kind of breakage.

[su:bhatta]

Back in 2010, I started with Ubuntu Meerkat, & did it quite often(thrice)...
Last May, thanks to Solaris, I did it again...

[cariboo]

I started using a Linux distro in 1998, my first was RedHat 5.2 (http://www.redhat.com/about/news/press-archive/1998/11/press-redhatlinux52), for the first 6 months it seems like I did a re-install almost every Saturday morning, as I learned more about the way things worked, and I tried something different every time. Fast forward to 2000, and I was selected to be a beta tester for Xandros, just after they split from Corel, over a one year period, we had a new iso every month, it came via courier, as most of us were still on dial-up, which meant a fresh install when the new iso arrived.

After Xandros lost it's shine, It seemed like every month or so, I'd try a new distribution, so again more fresh installs, before installing Ubuntu, I think I used PCLOS for 6 months without a fresh install.

Now I run the development release, and usually do about 3 fresh installs per testing cycle. With that kind of history, I've lost count of the number of fresh installs, so I couldn't say how many I've done since I started using Linux. :-P

[Erik1984]

Never really borked my Linux install. When I 'ruined' my install it was mostly visual and that can be restored by deleting the appropriate config folders :P I did ruin Windows XP installs in the past by using cracks that contained malware (and that is most of the time I guess). It's always a gamble when you take those things from a Warez site (those were the days...)

[qICEp]

Not an linux user, well at least not yet...but reinstall has become my ordinary process in maintenance of my PC.I simply find it more easy to reinstall once in a month-two than to clean it once in a week...I think i did at least 100 reinstall's since i got my PC (about 4-5 years ago) and only 3-4 were when my windows just crashed and i had to use repair tool so i just backed up everything i need and did a reinstall...I remember my windows were once so messed up that i could not do anything, i had to connect my HDD to friends PC so i can backup my files that i need...That was like 3 years ago and after that i reinstall my PC every month or two and dont worry about my files.I also do not use any antivirus cos i think that if some virus is good than its gonna sneak in no matter if you have antivirus or not, so there is no point having one...and one thing i love about linux is that there are no many viruses for them...

[synaptix]

A few too many times, lol. First trying Linux back in 2010, I borked my install within about 10 minutes after the installation. 8)

[deadflowr]

Countless.
But the one time I do remember reinstalling was the very first time.
Upon installing Ubuntu for the first time, I thought something was wrong when it only took ten minutes to install.
So I tried reinstalling it.
I was used to Windows, where a fast install might be a smooth half-hour.
I say ten minutes, but I actually left it running and came back to see the progress and the restart option was there.
So it might've been faster.

[neu5eeCh]

Many times. I first started with Red Hat in the late 90's. I borked it almost every evening. This was when KDE wasn't even in BETA yet. It was just a bunch of half-finished windows with options that did or didn't work. I eventually returned to Windows. Then I returned to Linux with Ubuntu. I initially borked it 5 or 6 times because I panicked and decided it would be easier to re-install. Nowadays, I don't panic at all. I love how easy it is to reinstall Linux when necessary. I've recently borked my systems simply because I've gotten blasé about reinstalls. What? I killed it? Meh. I'll copy over my Home folders with a live CD, then reinstall...

[-jay-]

prob about 25 times. i have no idea how to back up or else i would

[oldos2er]

I don't remember, but I don't think it was more than 6 or 7 times. This was back in the Feisty Fawn, Gnome2 + Emerald era.

Now that I know what Linux is about (to a degree), I keep two 25GB / partitions, one for alpha/beta versions of *buntu, one for the current stable version. /home and other data partitions are kept separately. I also have a couple external hard drives for data backup and other distro messing-around.

[CharlesA]

prob about 25 times. i have no idea how to back up or else i would

I use Clonezilla for backing up my installs, but I've heard tar (http://www.aboutdebian.com/tar-backup.htm) works perfectly well, too.

[Irihapeti]

I use Clonezilla for backing up my installs, but I've heard tar (http://www.aboutdebian.com/tar-backup.htm) works perfectly well, too.

I've used tar and DAR (a similar program, in the repos) for backup and restore many times. Sometimes, if I'm testing a new program and want to remove it if it's not doing what I want, I get lazy and just do a backup beforehand and a restore afterwards, instead of removing the program plus dependencies.

[BR8]

It's always good to backup files and stuff so you don't remove a bunch of DEs and remain inable to alter User and Group Accounts.

[greatsirkain]

Oh I'm borking as we speak but I remember the first/best/worst time. Only one computer, no installation media/live disks then I got "grub error", first I typed "help" then I typed "?", what I typed after that isn't fitting for polite conversation, but I went at it like I could somehow offend grub rescue if I tried hard enough.

[King Dude]

Well, way back when I was running Windows 98 I deleted too many important files one day, and my computer refused to work. Now, back then Windows came on a floppy which I had to boot from. I had two sets of floppies, one of which contained what is known as a Stoned Monkey virus from another fiasco some time before. Long story short, I accidentally tried to boot the wrong set of floppies only to end up with "YOUR COMPUTER IS STONED!"

There are quite a few other times I've killed my computer, but that time was the only time I could not recover from. Thank god it was on an older machine.

[tojonukokhadush]

yeah! several times! 6-7 times i guess since i have been using it from 9.04 continuously!! but i try to avoid any accidents nowadays; i do researches and surfing before fiddling with the system :-D coz it had costed me dear several times before!! finally i am stuck with 10.04 and it's the most stable version ever for me!

[hansdown]

Hi tojonukokhadush.

10.04 is my all-time favorite distro.

Please be aware, that 10.04 is "end of life".

This means, any updates, bug fixes, or security risks will not be addressed.

[3rdalbum]

I don't think I've ever borked an Ubuntu system. I guess I just don't go too far into extreme hacking, or I've been luckier or more careful to research what I'm doing.

I once lost data when resizing an HFS+ partition, but I had a backup.

[zer010]

i know I've done it a few times back in 08-09 days. One time I was actually able to get back and running w/o a reinstall. I had somehow managed to screw up xorg and all I could get to work was the command line. Apparently that was enough. Using links I was able to google around and use these forums until I found a solution, basically restoring xorg.conf. Try doing THAT with Windows! ^_^d

[CharlesA]

I think I've lost count of how many times I've borked my test machine. Thankfully it's running on OpenVZ, so easy to restore a working backup.