You say that even if the .cls and .sty files are put in “/home/username/texmf/tex/latex”, one should execute the command 'sudo texhash' to update the LaTeX database. THis will not work if the user does not have root permissions. The command to run should be one of the two:

1. texhash texmf (if executed from the home directory /home/username/)
2. texhash ~/texmf (can be executed from any directory)

I'm now using Back in Time and I understand the Time Drive UI a bit better as result. With some adjustments prior knowledge of this shouldn't be needed! I'll post suggestions once I've used it for a bit and will try Time Drive again later.

Meanwhile, a Time Drive category to find all the Time Drive posts would be nice. Alternatively, the Related Posts plugin might be worthwhile. (I had to use Google to find this page again)

I like the theme. Haven't seen it before. Finding a new on is on my to do list, after WP3.0 ships. Enjoyed yr blog.

First impressions

Where is the BACKUP NOW button? I have used a combination of tar, rsync and sbackup (simple backup) and Clonezilla on Linux up to now. Sbackup sets the standard for elegant simplicity. Unfortunately it doesn't work on Lucid which is what started me looking for something better. I was about to give Back In Time a go when I found Time Drive.

First: the program crashed immediately with a SIGSEGV (I had just exited after looking at some menus). The crash log is 10Mb, most of which is a core dump. If you want it and tell me where to upload it I'll be happy to do the needful. I hesitate to upload this to launchpad -- I'll upload the log minus the core dump.

Second: I believe that there should be a default list of directories that are excluded from backup. Sbackup offers, quite sensibly, I think:

/media
/var/spool
/var/cache
/var/tmp

to which I add remote directories mounted under /mnt (on an 8.04 LTS machine on which I run it). Update: I see from the duplicity site that /proc is advisable to exclude. If true, doing so would be a good default.

Entering the command sudo time-drive in a terminal window (after configuring via the GUI) yielded

/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py:127: RuntimeWarning: PyOS_InputHook is not available for interactive use of PyGTK
set_interactive(1)
Could not resolve property : linearGradient5167
Could not resolve property : linearGradient5167
Could not resolve property : linearGradient4636
Could not resolve property : linearGradient4592
Could not resolve property : linearGradient4247
Could not resolve property : linearGradient5167
Could not resolve property : radialGradient3709

[ at this point the program opened on screen ]

^CTraceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/timedrive/app.py", line 634, in buttonExit_Pressed
def buttonExit_Pressed(self):
KeyboardInterrupt

OK, on the 2nd attempt I've found the backup button. I thought the floppies represented archives. There's really nothing to beat a button labeled "Backup now". I know there's a tool tip but I missed it the first time. Clicking it yielded

04/04/10 23:27:05 ERROR Failed: /

followed by a report that the backup had completed. I had no better luck backing up my own home directory (exactly the same result).

It's not clear if "Exclude file patterns" expects directory names, directory names plus file names, or file names, as in

/dir
/dir/*
dir/*.tmp

or all 3. Some guidance would help. Symmetry between include and exclude would be nice. Sbackup offers to include and exclude individual files and named directories.

Run 'nice' as a cron job (default: enabled)

was confusing. First, what's nice? I assume it means that running as a cron job is a good idea (in which case Run 'nice', i.e., as a cron job), but I'm used to seeing a field with a ? at the end which is clickable and which explains the option (dnsmadeeasy.com e.g., does it well). If it's the default why isn't the box already checked?

I tried using General Settings and Local Backup Directory (what's the difference if any between these?). Backups failed with both. The backup got as far as creating a username folder on the mounted drive (an NFS partition on a ReadyNAS server that looks local to the OS and which is freely readable and writable by both the user, me, and root).

Having two Advanced buttons on the screen at the same time is a little odd. One deals with overall settings and the other with job specific settings. I would change the job settings to "Customize" and move the advanced options to button on the Options tab.

Can't get into the autoremove menu at all. Not sure it's because there's nothing to remove or a bug.

The restoring files UI is not intuitive.

A green button with a plus sign under Restore files, with a tool tip that says add folders or files the backup queue???

Adding here to the restore queue would make sense, but backup? (under a menu heading "Restore files"?). You've lost me here. Should the tool tip read "restore queue"? I assume so. The red button would be a chance to make it clear but it doesn't offer any more info on the queue.

Two blue "i"s on the screen? Not great from a design pov. One does nothing, the other shows log info. And the ring? Help? Emergency? Rescue?

Clicking on the Restore Files button is good for a heart attack as it triggers an announcement that a restoration is in progress even though there's nothing to restore (I think we've all seen announcements like that followed by non-bootable systems).

So, maybe I just got a bad build but it looks like a great idea but...

The concept is too good to languish. Do consider making a video for YouTube showing the program working and explaining it. And put up a matrix showing how it compares with other backup tools. You'd probably rather focus on getting the project working but it'll happen faster with help. I doubt I'm the only person who has stopped by and wondered if this is a sustainable project despite both the robust underlying tools and and the great idea.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to help with development.

Incidentally, I found Time Drive partly by chance. I didn't find it in any searches on "linux backup" but before I commit to installing anything I search on "better than X" (Back In Time in this case) and it turned up exactly 1 hit.

Wanted to mention two things that might be of use to other people who come across this page:

1. In my experience, deleting multiple backups at once seems to take much much longer than deleting them serially. I haven't timed this, so it may just be an illusion, but for what it's worth, I do them one at a time. Which is a pain, because it means going into the Time Machine interface once per deletion, but I do think it's faster than deleting several at once.

2. Re Kim's problem: you can navigate backups belonging to other computers by first mounting the sparsebundle, then Control-clicking the Time Machine icon in the Dock, then selecting Browse Other Time Machine Disks. There are some odd things about the interface if you do that, but mostly it seems to work about the same as browsing the current computer's backups.

Anyway moving, one of the above posters insisted that Paolini's work not be judged against the likes of other fantasy authors, I'm sorry but I must disagree. Oakes line about “the lyrical beauty of Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf,” wasn't an abstraction that was a direct quote from Paolini himself in where he thinks his writing falls, which flies beyond presumptuous and straight into outright arrogance. When he himself views himself as being equal to far greater writers then he and his works are fair game. Probably the worst thing about Paolini which effects the quality of his work is som ething so basic that every writer needs: criticism. Paolini's parents have mentioned they don't expose him to bad reviews and the such out of fear it would damage his confidence or some BS reason like that. The trouble is, how does one improve if all your feedback is nothing but inane fanwanking. You have to be able to see your work from other points of view even the negative ones. Otherwise your work will stagnate and fall apart.

Thanks

Victor

The trilogy is far from perfect, don't misunderstand me. On the contrary, however, perfection does not exist in the literary world (and the natural world, but that's misinterpreting my point). And for the record, all novels should be read to delevop an educated imagination. To say the trilogies should be left untouched is simply an arrogant thing to say.

Last point, I promise. I agree with Oakes - to a degree - regarding Paolini's descriptive style. However, there are other genres of writing other than narrative and persuasive in the world. Descriptive writing offers the mind a vivid image to fall back on, but only if the reader has attained a visual frame of mind. Linguistic minds may not understand the trilogy as well as others, so should that cast a horrible shadow over the novels? What I'm trying to say, is literature can be correctly interpreted in any possible way. One author (his name is eluding me) spent years to create a word that described the mental interpretation of love; it was thirty pages long and derived from multiple languages. Should this word be deemed useless because some - or most - may think the word is far too long and confusing?

Just something to think about...
- Nate

I do however have some problems making it work on Snow Leopard (10.6.2). I'm quite new to a lot of this, so I hope someone can help me out

I'm using:
Python 2.6.4
Sip-4.10
PyQt-mac-gpl-4.7
qt-mac-cocoa-opensource-4.6.2

Other QT verions did not work (error: Failed to determine the layout of your Qt installation when trying to configure PyQt)

Now however, I am stuck on a different error. When trying to configure PyQt i get the following error:
Error: Unable to create the C++ code.

Ive tried to rebuild sip using -arch i386 as well, but I'm not sure if it is sip causing this...
Can it be a problem of the Qt install?

I've tried configuring PyQt using –verbose -j 1 –no-designer-plugin -q as proposed above by mark, or as propsed by original poster and also --use-arch i386. All return the same error of not being able to create the c++ code

Could compiling the Qt installation work?
When browsing ftp://ftp.qt.nokia.com/qt/source/ for source versions, I could'nt find the mac version src for 4.6.x... Perhaps someone could point me to the correct source to use for 4.6.x and higher?

Any hints and tips is appreciated!
Will

If anyone else has ideas or workarounds, I'd love to hear them.

./configure CC="gcc -arch i386"

for all dependencies (as needed for gnugpg according to http://macgpg.sourceforge.net/), and having used

CFLAGS="-arch i386 "
python setup.py --librsync-dir=/usr/local build
python setup.py install --prefix=/usr/local
export PYTHONPATH='/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/'

for the final duplicity install (to get it in /usr/local), I got an apparently clean install.

But... Running a simple version check gives this

duplicity -V
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/duplicity", line 41, in
from duplicity import collections
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/duplicity/collections.py", line 29, in
from duplicity import path
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/duplicity/path.py", line 36, in
from duplicity import librsync
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/duplicity/librsync.py", line 29, in
import _librsync
ImportError: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/duplicity/_librsync.so, 2): Symbol not found: _rs_file_copy_cb
Referenced from: /usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/duplicity/_librsync.so
Expected in: flat namespace
in /usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/duplicity/_librsync.so

Googling _rs_file_copy_cb only finds one entry, suggesting using Python 2.6 instead of Python 2.5 (already using 2.6). Any ideas/similar experience?