how to back up data and impact on the environment

[MagicPoulp]

There are 2 things to back up:
- the data, the files. This can be done manually using a cloud storage, a network, a USB stick.
- The system installation with all the programs definition, configuration, etc. This is not simple to backup. I tried a few times with dd and rsync to copies the partition image. I was not able to install it on a formated partition.

Your folks are using Linux as it was Windows.
Well, what about using good old UNIX way.
There is one server. It contains all data, files, everything. Server admin takes care of backing up the server.
All workstations are diskless GUI terminals. Think, how inexpensive this solution is. Any terminal can be used until it fails and nothing is ever lost. No expensive hard drives. Every user can use any terminal to log in and do their job.

Edit: With small SSD drives getting real cheap you could use a hybrid version of above, the OS is locally installed, but home directories are remote. Remember, this is not Windows, anything is possible.

This solution is incomplete. One needs to install programs with sudo. This requires to be on the local disk. If the totality of the disk is remote, then you cannot use your computer if there is a network failure or if you want to use your laptop in the bus. Besides, in big companies, there is a cost for the sys admin taking care of this diskless GUI terminal. And it is not something that look trivial. My experience of modified system is that they diverge from debian stable and are less stable due to network login patch software and other. This cannot happen in a startup. In a startup you are just smart with backup of data, not of software install.

[MagicPoulp]

not the corporate models that have a high resale value

Many companies will not resell. They will recycle computers that have only been used for 2 years. For various reasons the computers are considered old: risk to lose personal data not backed up properly, time lost to reinstall things and programs on a new computer, laggy misconfigured graphics driver conflicts, Ubuntu laggy GUI, or not to forget because it is cool and in the culture to have a new computer. It requires a certain philosophy to keep an old computer until it breaks.

[MagicPoulp]

Debiman said the link between environmental impact and backup is not clear. Here lies a clarification.

I think that if debian made it easier and built-in to back up personal data and system installation, it would have a tremendous effect on the environmental impact of the large community of the users of debian-based linux distributions (Ubuntu and other).

Example of things that simplified life for things already managed by other commands: apt, systemd. We could have something making it trivial to backup. The guys developing it may even apply to get funding from the Linux foundation. And we might create an e-medal for the software having good environmental benefits!

I cannot drive this project but I can lend my coding skills in C/C++.

--> Does anyone see in such a tool relevant environmental benefits and time-saving benefits?

[MagicPoulp]

You don't 'copy' it back to a formatted partition but dd it an empty one. For my images I use qemu-utilities, similar to dd.

The grub configuration has certain hash numbers that are unique to the partition. It was long ago but I could not manage making the copied partition bootable. THis is more difficult if you copy from one computer and installed on another computer.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

if debian made it easier and built-in to back up personal data and system installation, it would have a tremendous effect on the environmental impact

Why? I can't see it myself.

Even if people are getting rid of (still functional) old devices that can be environmentally beneficial if the replacements are more energy efficient.

[GarryRicketson]

If people did not use so much toliet paper, that would have a even more a tremendous effect on the environment. Less plastic bags, also would help.
Plus , it is not all that hard or complicated to make a back up of a Debian system, or any other OS for that matter.

[Segfault]

BTW, you can have laptops in a remote location using home directory over internet. NFSv4 was designed with internet in mind. There is a product working this way, Google Chromebook. Not sure if they are using NFS, though. But the idea is in use, regardless. Once you have your data and files in a well maintained server your workstation failure won't affect your files. No need to replace in every two years just to insure against hardware failure.

[CwF]

You don't 'copy' it back to a formatted partition but dd it an empty one. For my images I use qemu-utilities, similar to dd.

The grub configuration has certain hash numbers that are unique to the partition. It was long ago but I could not manage making the copied partition bootable. THis is more difficult if you copy from one computer and installed on another computer.

I didn't say that well.. Much simpler for me is to keep it all together from the get-go. So I image entire devices. This keeps grub intact for bootable partitions obviously. I don't incrementally back up any system image. I'd usually have some working image to write out to a disk to use in another computer, but as discussed elsewhere, I've not had issue with moving a system from one computer to another.

[MagicPoulp]

if debian made it easier and built-in to back up personal data and system installation, it would have a tremendous effect on the environmental impact

Why? I can't see it myself.

Even if people are getting rid of (still functional) old devices that can be environmentally beneficial if the replacements are more energy efficient.

You are not the only one that does not see the benefits. No one said that benefits can be seen. One guy even compared the suggestion as pointless and useless as trying to use less toilet paper.

Beyond the subjective acceptance or not, there is a part of logic. You gave a counter-example mentioning the energy-efficiency. But my statement was not a complete general rule. In terms of logic, assuming there exists cases of more energy efficient new products, the counter-example does not contradict the statement at the top of this post. A genreal rule can have counter examples. It has to be valid in a large amount of times but not all the time. The process in question is statistical with lots of variations.

It is not trivial to synchronize words with the reality. There are methods to fits words to the reality. Using facts often helps to give examples that illustrate the general statement. Consider a company using Ubuntu with lots of problems all the time on Ubuntu (laggy interface, etc). And the policy is to replace computers every 2 years for all employees or to discard it when an employee leaves. In terms of pure logic, it does sustain the statement that is a generalization. One can observe the fact that laggy software is considered as the fault of the hardware. One can see that backup of installation is not that simple and not built-in.

It is not straightforward to establish a link between tools for backup of data and the impact on the environment. One can try to explain, with arguments and so on, etc. But it is just an hypothesis. One would need actual numbers and polls and measure. You can make quizz online also.

Even if people are getting rid of (still functional) old devices that can be environmentally beneficial if the replacements are more energy efficient.

This principle applies to cars. Perhaps it applies to smart phones. And yes the technology evolves. I was quite impressed to see the low energy consumption of diod DEL light bulbs. However, I seems to me obvious that this principle of more efficient new products does not apply to desktop computers. The output of power supplies have been quite constant on most computers. I would rather say that graphics cards and processors are more greedy in energy over time.

Thousands of companies running computers use over-dimensioned hardware. Software is created in a more lazy way nowadays due to over-dimensioned hardware. Programs don't even use all available processor cores. The physics required to use more cores on processors. But the programmers and companies often think it is too complex to use multiple threads so they use only one core.

[CwF]

The improvement in transportation is primarily computer control and where it matters most aerodynamics. While single passenger things have improved, some improvement has been sucked up in feature creep. For the US the biggest improvement has been in trucking (aero) where miles per gallon has doubled and per pound is even better.

For computers, similar feature creep has absorbed much, but in work per watt terms there has been big improvement. The trucking analogy would be data centers where the improvements have been huge.

It has been correctly mentioned in this thread that the lower end of consumer crap is the real problem and not the xeon on the secretaries desk. Compare the power consumption of a smart phone to a decade old desktop, that's the swap that has occurred and that old desktop will run minutes on that smart phone battery...

Software is created in a more lazy way nowadays due to over-dimensioned hardware..

This is an unrelated but intersting point, I somewhat agree. But not everything can be threaded. In the data centers VM's do the threading in a sense. We see now mucho core servers doing the work of a dozen servers from ten years ago, with substantial savings in power.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

@OP: you are too prolix, can you please be more succinct.

Consider a company using Ubuntu with lots of problems all the time on Ubuntu (laggy interface, etc). And the policy is to replace computers every 2 years for all employees or to discard it when an employee leaves. In terms of pure logic, it does sustain the statement that is a generalization. One can observe the fact that laggy software is considered as the fault of the hardware. One can see that backup of installation is not that simple and not built-in.

Is that a common occurrence? I would personally be surprised if companies really were replacing hardware because Ubuntu is too laggy.

I'm pretty sure that all professional sysadmins know how to backup, isn't that part of the job description?

Also, Ubuntu has a backup guide:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem

this principle of more efficient new products does not apply to desktop computers

No but it does apply if the user is considering replacing an old x86 dinosaur with a modern, RISC-based hacker board, or suchlike — for example, Arduino boards draw *much* less power than a full desktop machine.

[debiman]

The grub configuration has certain hash numbers that are unique to the partition. It was long ago but I could not manage making the copied partition bootable. THis is more difficult if you copy from one computer and installed on another computer.

oh, i missed this earlier.
you are talking about UUIDs!
yes, making a cloned disk usable again often requires editing /etc/fstab and fixing UUIDs.
this is explicitely mentioned in many wikis and tutorials and an easy fix.

so, all in all, i am coming to the conclusion:
MacicPoulp has a way of expressing their winding thoughts and ideas, but they don't really know that much about Linux; many things would sound different, shorter probably, if they did a little more research first.

[MagicPoulp]

yes, making a cloned disk usable again often requires editing /etc/fstab and fixing UUIDs.
this is explicitely mentioned in many wikis and tutorials and an easy fix.

Cloning a partition and installing it on another computer by editing the UUIDs is not simple. I think it could be be much simpler and more accessible to more people. Just accept an opinion. It is not because I did not search on wikis and tutorials that I can have this opinion.

Conclusion:
I think people will buy more computers because it is not simple enough to set up a double boot or to backup. No one here agrees.

[MagicPoulp]

I regret I did not focus on this below from the start.

There are many companies that have a policy to systematically change the computers of employees every 2 or 3 years instead of waiting the computers to break. Think about it. What can be the reason? A quite obvious explanation: to avoid suddenly interrupting the work at an unexpected time if waiting for the computer to break, it is time consuming to set up a new computer, or data could not be backed up properly.

EDIT:
"Replacement implies throwing the old computer to the trash and recycling, not at all reusing the computer parts".

[MagicPoulp]

Is that a common occurrence? I would personally be surprised if companies really were replacing hardware because Ubuntu is too laggy.

I'm pretty sure that all professional sysadmins know how to backup, isn't that part of the job description?

It is a fact in my personal experience. A colleague got a new computer because his 2-year old computer was too slow due to misconfiguration on Ubuntu (drivers, Unity interface lag, slow start). The high occurrence can be seen if one considers many companies have that policy to replace computers after 2 or 3 years, and in the underlying reason that computers start to lag for software reasons.

Many companies do not have sysadmins managing backups for people's desk computers. At best they give a mounted folder.

EDIT:
Replacement implies throwing the old computer to the trash and recycling, not at all reusing the computer parts"

[Head_on_a_Stick]

many companies have that policy to replace computers after 2 or 3 years

Well that can only be a good thing, no?

I like cheap, reconditioned, business-class laptops

[MagicPoulp]

many companies have that policy to replace computers after 2 or 3 years

Well that can only be a good thing, no?

I like cheap, reconditioned, business-class laptops

I am not sure what you mean. Please clarify. Perhaps I was not precise enough. By replacing, I did not mean they reconfigure. Let me edit and add "Replacement implies throwing the old computer to the trash and recycling, not at all reusing the computer parts".

[CwF]

. Let me edit and add "Replacement implies throwing the old computer to the trash and recycling, not at all reusing the computer parts".

That does not happen.
The notion is on the edge of trolling.
You must work for Springfield Nuclear where they intentionally destroy goodness so no one else can benefit.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I am not sure what you mean.

Some companies sell on their on hardware to be refurbished and re-sold, I am typing this on an X201 that I got cheap because of this

e.g: https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/Inv ... eSupport=1

[MagicPoulp]

. Let me edit and add "Replacement implies throwing the old computer to the trash and recycling, not at all reusing the computer parts".

That does not happen.
The notion is on the edge of trolling.
You must work for Springfield Nuclear where they intentionally destroy goodness so no one else can benefit.

[/quote]

That does not happen?

You cannot claim things in absolutes. It happens sometimes to an extent yet to be estimated. This is a problem of logic. You found the counter example of laptops that tend to be resell-able. But you did not prove that most computers in most companies are resold. Desktop computers are very heavy and require a cost of transportation, and a higher cost in a isolated small city.

No one knows for sure what happens in most companies. I only said they probably waste the working computers.