Re: [PLUG] Copying files from unbootable machine

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 11:29 AM, brent timothy saner
<brent.saner@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/19/2017 11:10 AM, KP wrote:
>> Before you tried to copy the files, did you "sudo su" or something
>> similar? The Live CD user is not root.
>>
>
> generally speaking, you probably have better options for a rescue
> environment. i understand sometimes you have to make do (after all, you
> can't make a boot usb stick from an OS that's kaput etc.), but for the
> future, there are distros that boot you right to a root shell (and come
> with software specifically geared towards some useful functionality in a
> rescue situation).
>

Honestly, if anything I've been moving in the opposite direction.  As
removable storage space grows, and systems become more complex, I
think the role of the minimal rescue distro is actually diminishing.

System rescue CD is nice and all, but:

I don't think it supports X11, so if you have a lot to do that will be a PITA.

I know it doesn't support zfs, and getting that working on system
rescue CD while it is live is definitely a pain.  Getting zfs running
from an ubuntu boot disk is easier.

I believe it doesn't include systemd at present, which means reading
journal files and such is going to be painful.  Sure, I could
duplicate them to text-based logs by running syslog or such, but it is
2017 - a rescue disk today that can't read journal files is like one 5
years ago that lacked a text editor.

Back when you were limited to 600MB to fit on a CD a minimal rescue
distro made a lot more sense than today when a 64GB USB3 flash drive
is pretty cheap.

Sure, I'd love to have a Gentoo-based rescue CD that runs systemd, has
KDE, and has prepared kernel sources handy for building modules like
zfs.  However, failing that I'm willing to use an Ubuntu live DVD
image.

-- 
Rich
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