Advice needed about keeping Hardy long term...

[BigSilly]

So, I'm kind of thinking of sticking with Hardy Heron for the full three year term. Simply put, I really like it. It does everything I could possibly want from an operating system. The Ibex is coming in, and so far, though it's obviously a bit early yet, it doesn't look like it'll offer me much benefit over what I already have. Hardy's proved to be just too darned good.

With that in mind, can you offer me some advice on how to keep my system clean and fresh and bug free? I try to delete crap I don't want as I go, but is there anything extra I could do to keep Hardy running optimally? I've never run a distro longer than the usual six months before, so if there's anything I've overlooked or some excellent piece of advice you can offer I'd be most grateful. Though I've been using Linux exclusively now for over a year, I'm still finding things new all the time, so anything you can tell me about looking after a long term install would be fantastic.

Maybe the Ibex reviews will change my mind later on, we'll see, but after the early shakes I reckon Hardy has turned out brilliantly. I think it's well worth keeping for the long term. It's absolutely brilliant.

Cheers in advance. :)

[Luke has no name]

I'd probably be doing the same thing if I were on a desktop. Ibex gives some hardware improvements and better suspend/resume over Hardy, though... let's just hope the flash support stops sucking.

That said, I don't think " viruses" will be your problem. Over time, a system simply gets cruft build-up. That is, You get lots of rogue files laying around, programs that you don't need anymore stay installed on the system, etc. Just keep your startup programs to a minimum, keep the system up to date, and uninstall packages you don't need.

[LaRoza]

So, I'm kind of thinking of sticking with Hardy Heron for the full three year term. Simply put, I really like it. It does everything I could possibly want from an operating system. The Ibex is coming in, and so far, though it's obviously a bit early yet, it doesn't look like it'll offer me much benefit over what I already have. Hardy's proved to be just too darned good.

With that in mind, can you offer me some advice on how to keep my system clean and fresh and bug free? I try to delete crap I don't want as I go, but is there anything extra I could do to keep Hardy running optimally? I've never run a distro longer than the usual six months before, so if there's anything I've overlooked or some excellent piece of advice you can offer I'd be most grateful. Though I've been using Linux exclusively now for over a year, I'm still finding things new all the time, so anything you can tell me about looking after a long term install would be fantastic.


That is good. No one got hurt by using what is tried and true. Ubuntu, in my experience, doesn't slow down over time that drastically, even if you constantly upgrade to new versions several times.

If you really want to have clean slates, you can have a separate home and reinstal the system periodically when Hardy gets new ISO's.

[BigSilly]

Thanks for the replies. Having a separate /home partition is something I'm looking into for the future. It makes sense, and I think it's something I'll do when next I install a fresh distro.

As for rogue files and logs, that is mostly the type of thing I am talking about I suppose. Which logs can be regularly deleted, and what "rogue" files should I be looking out for that can also be removed? I don't expect viruses will be an issue either, but what about rootkits? I have chkrootkit and rkhunter installed. Are they trustworthy in the long run?

Actually, the more I think about keeping Hardy the more I'm excited by the idea. As I say, I've never kept a Linux install around for longer than 6 months, so it'll be very interesting to see how it compares long term to the complete and utter nightmare that was my last Windows XP install! :biggrin:

[LaRoza]

As for rogue files and logs, that is mostly the type of thing I am talking about I suppose. Which logs can be regularly deleted, and what "rogue" files should I be looking out for that can also be removed? I don't expect viruses will be an issue either, but what about rootkits? I have chkrootkit and rkhunter installed. Are they trustworthy in the long run?

You can periodically purge your $HOME, or if you know what settings you don't want you can delete them selectively (back up home, it helps)

There really isn't a lot to do. This isn't Windows and there isn't a registery. The only problems will be with individual apps, and even then it is minor. (Purge cache occasionally for your browser)

I haven't heard of any rootkits.

[BigSilly]

You can periodically purge your $HOME, or if you know what settings you don't want you can delete them selectively (back up home, it helps)

There really isn't a lot to do. This isn't Windows and there isn't a registery. The only problems will be with individual apps, and even then it is minor. (Purge cache occasionally for your browser)

I haven't heard of any rootkits.

Magic. Thanks very much for that. Just a bit of a tidy up is needed occasionally then. I already set FF3 to purge the cache every time I close it, and I'll keep an eye on the hidden files and folders in my /home directory.

/puts slippers on and gets comfy

:biggrin:

[SunnyRabbiera]

actually me I am sticking to linux mint elyssa as it has a rolling release like plan.

[cardinals_fan]

Do it! My secondary box runs Ubuntu Dapper Drake (the best release still receiving support, in my opinion).

[BigSilly]

Do it! My secondary box runs Ubuntu Dapper Drake (the best release still receiving support, in my opinion).

Blimey, that's Ubuntu 6.06 isn't it? I didn't realise it was still being supported with updates. How long are Ubuntu's usually supported for? The missus is still using Gutsy quite happily on her Dell laptop, and despite my best efforts to get her to upgrade to Hardy, she's staying put. When does support for that end?

[cardinals_fan]

Blimey, that's Ubuntu 6.06 isn't it? I didn't realise it was still being supported with updates. How long are Ubuntu's usually supported for? The missus is still using Gutsy quite happily on her Dell laptop, and despite my best efforts to get her to upgrade to Hardy, she's staying put. When does support for that end?
Dapper was the first LTS. LTS releases receive 3 years of support. When Dapper dies next summer, I'll just give NetBSD the whole drive, but that's a while from now.

Gutsy loses support next spring. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

[Joeb454]

Gutsy support ends when Jaunty (9.04) is release I believe, around the same time as Dapper support.

I'm thinking of sticking with Hardy too, I'm actually reinstalling it as I type this