Zac Medley Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Hi, I haven't been here for a few weeks because everything is working very well and I have figured out everything that I needed to figure out. Thanks to eveyone who answered my earlier questions. My next one is somewhat vague: Are there any system utils that I need to be running as regular maintenance, like some version of DEFRAG? Just wondering... [moved from Everything Linux by spinynorman] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Linux file systems do not fragment like Windows. So a defrag is not needed. The only "problems" that warrant a look might be the log files and the space used by them, although I have never bothered with it. Linux just does not need the attention that a Windows system requires, including reinstalling it every 6 months! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grendal Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Linux just does not need the attention that a Windows system requires, including reinstalling it every 6 months! :D Unless you count a new release every six months or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbuckley2004 Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Ah! You've defined the difference between "want to" and "have to"! B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted December 4, 2007 Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 Linux file systems do not fragment like Windows. So a defrag is not needed. Hey, that's not true. Linux filesystems fragment too, but generally there isn't any performance handicap worth talking about due to fragmentation. Actually the same thing applies for Windows and the NTFS journaling filesystem as well: Unless the filesystem is handling something special (say a HUGE SQL database) then NTFS does not need defragmentation, either- once a year, including the MFT is more than enough. Only FAT32 needs frequent and thorough defragmentation. But nobody will tell you that simple truth, because Executive Soft, Raxco and O&O will lose their client base... :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavaeolus Posted December 4, 2007 Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 (edited) logrotate takes care of your logfiles, so not much to do there symlinks and etc-update might be worth looking at, they take care of dead symlinks and unneeded conf-files in /etc. they are not neccessary but nice to have Edited December 4, 2007 by lavaeolus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Posted December 5, 2007 Report Share Posted December 5, 2007 Hey, that's not true. Linux filesystems fragment too, but generally there isn't any performance handicap worth talking about due to fragmentation.Actually the same thing applies for Windows and the NTFS journaling filesystem as well: Unless the filesystem is handling something special (say a HUGE SQL database) then NTFS does not need defragmentation, either- once a year, including the MFT is more than enough. Only FAT32 needs frequent and thorough defragmentation. But nobody will tell you that simple truth, because Executive Soft, Raxco and O&O will lose their client base... :P I don't know about that scarecrow... anecdotal evidence would point elsewhere... Linux is my main system now BECAUSE of all the maintenance, including regular defrags I had to do. Only ever had 512 mb of ddr RAM, and if I didn't run regular defrags every few months my box got VERY slow. Perhaps if I never installed, uninstalled much it might have been different, but as a user it just seemed to use things... well... very inefficiently. Suffice it to say that even with current bug issues still being sorted out, Mandriva Linux 2008.0 is far above anything MS Windows offers. Re your original question Zac Medley, the only other thing I would suggest would be a backup program. Mondo is my favourite, it's in the 2008.0 repositories. Highly recommend it. It's nice if you can automate something to happen regularly, but I'm using it at the moment manually. It's worth it to be able to restore my box when I've stuffed everything up. You can choose whether or not to restore everything from bare metal, or to restore only parts (like leaving your home partition intact, for instance). Highly recommend it. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted December 5, 2007 Report Share Posted December 5, 2007 Hi Zac, now you just need to use your system. Well, you may want to check that you have the update repositories configured (mcc/mandriva control center => software manager) and make sure you update once in a while. That is about it. BTW you don't have to update all of your system if: you have no services running that can be connected to from the outside and you make sure you get the updates for your webbrowser Another thing to take care of is your backup solution. Currently I use rsync with a 500GB external drive. I have to get another one, and then encrypt it, so I can bring one to work (encrypted: so no one can get to the data), to make sure that I have a real backup. Backups that are physically at the same location are not backups, by definition. But basically, that's it, after setting up Linux, it keeps running; from my server (internet, firewall, download, music server): $ uptime 22:53:20 up 303 days, 22:22, 1 user, load average: 0.93, 0.74, 0.65 I had it up for 650 days before that, but then we moved house... it actually still runs Mdv 2005LE. Runs 2 vncserver sessions and then some. Needs no handholding, needs only some power and fresh air, keeps going... Linux, frack yeah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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