Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

Today I "vapor locked." It's a mindset I get into when something just grabs my attention and doesn't let go. I had chores to do, and stuff to set up, and I NEVER got to it. Why?

So I've got my Big Backup coming at the end of the year, and I decided to use RAR compression. Seeing that there was a RAR implementation for Linux, I figured I could just use that Linux version over the WinRAR version.

But since WinRAR was a graphical program, and RAR was command line, I'd have to experiment and find out what switches and commands and all sorts of fun I'd need to make the WinRAR compression work in Linux. That took me nearly six hours of experimenting and backing and forthing and I eventually got it.

When I was done, I was still supercharged on trying to get my backups in order for the 1st, and began organizing my cluttered desktop into more organized directories and going through my Organized Backups for a little cleanup (the unorganized backups are...a nightmare). Next thing I know it's 1AM.

Here's where things start getting wierd. I had one more thing I needed to and that was finish up organizing my digitized books. Just basically sorting them into Fiction and Non-Fiction. And that's when the "vapor lock" started to fade. Suddenly I wanted to be doing ANYTHING other than organizing books.

I ate dinner, watched a movie, chatted with a friend, all the while trying to get my brain to Just Finish This Last Thing Before Bed. And more and more, I just didn't want to finish it. I was bored, distractable.

How funny that basically ten hours of time goes by in a flash with a huge amount of work, and then the next two go by at a crawl of me just trying to sort 100 books into Fiction or Non-Fiction and my brain doing anything it can to not do it.

Anyways, it's done, and I plan to keep file changes to a minimum until the 1st. On the first, I'll reinstall all the systems for a nice clean operating system (the plan is to refresh the OSes every two years moving forward), and once that's done, do the year-end backups. That'll take a few days, if not a week (power outages permitting).

Vapor-locking rarely happens, but when it does I can move mountains - as long as moving mountains is what interests me when it hits.

Tom Smothers
1937-2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HshZ5p5R0QY

::opens Threads::
::Threads defaults to "For You"::
::immediately loads a transphobic post::

"How is this in any way 'For Me?'"

::hits block::

Looks like I got it!

Home Directory Backup
rar a -m5 -r -s -v5370000 -x/home/dolari/.local/share/Trash. -x/home/dolari/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/ -ep2 -ol -rr "YYMM Nayru Home Directory Backup.rar" /home/dolari/

Incremental backups:
rar a -m5 -r -s -v5370000 -x"/mnt/The Archive/Videos/" -x"/mnt/The Archive/00_DUMP/Videos/" -x"/mnt/The Archive/.Trash-1000/" -x"/mnt/The Archive/Working Directory/" -ep2 -ol -rr -taYYYYMMDDHHSS "YYMM Incremental Backup.rar" "/mnt/The Archive"

Full Yearly Backup
rar a -m5 -r -s -v5370000 -x"/mnt/The Archive/Videos/" -x"/mnt/The Archive/00_DUMP/Videos/" -x"/mnt/The Archive/.Trash-1000/" -x"/mnt/The Archive/Working Directory/" -ep2 -ol -rr "YYYMM Full Backup.rar" "/mnt/The Archive"

Saved the seafood marinara by basically picking out the seafood, and adding it to storebought marinara. :)

Yuck has become YUM!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

https://comicbook.com/irl/news/pizza-hut-classic-viral-throwback-nostalgia-restaurant/

Help me, Dr. Internet!

I can't really get a straight answer on this, and am hoping someone out there has a good solution.

Every year, I make a huge several-terrabyte backup of my entire system. When I was on Windows, I used RAR for this. Good compression, was able to break it up in 4GB file blocks to make file access easy if I needed something off the backup or repair an archive.

I've long since moved to TAR.XZ for intermediate backups, but the access takes forever cause it's a single archive, so I've never used it for my large once-a-year-complete-backup.

That said, the question: would it be worth doing the Full Everything Backup with tar.xg over jumping into Windows to WinRAR it (Day 9023849283468923 of my 30 day trial!)? In general does RAR pack tighter than TAR.XZ? Can TAR.XZ break itself into chunks for easier access?

My update is scheduled for January 1st. Any help would be appreciated! And thanks in advance!