[ILUG] hard- vs. soft-links [was: How to copy some files ]

[Wynne, Conor]

Use the GUI and don't delete files, use the other option, whats it called
again, the dustbin or something ;-)

Conor who only knows about symbolic links ;-))

I'm pretty sure that I have a softlink from
/mnt/public/mnt/public/downloads/Linux/wasteCPU/setiathome to
/home/cwynne/seti

The /mnt/pub....../seti.. directory resides on an external raidvolume and
/home/../seti is on the internal IDE2 drive. 
So I dont have to cd around the gaf. I suppose that would count as across
different devices. 

If you're wondering [probably not] why /mnt/public is there twice, its
because I restored from tapebackup and I didn't know that it keeps the
directory structure. I know now ;-)

Actually, how can I fix that quickly and easily? I thought about firstly
mv'ing the structure to /tmp. Then copying it back again but I'm sure some
wee genius knows a quickie solution. Mind you I never even bothered trying a
its not a priority now that its all linked anyway. 

CW

--------------------------------
 hum.  interesting variation on the classic technique of
 redefining `rm' to `mv' the files into `./.trash/' (or
 with a prefix of `#' or a suffix of `~'; the variations
 are endless).  these classic techniques only provide a
 means to roll back accidental `rm's, so there is still
 considerable scope for data lost as there are other ways
 of deleting files --- which is not a problem for this
 hard link idea.

 but, like the classic techniques, there is no rolling
 back of accidental overwrites.

 ( rolling back overwrites reminds me of the "snapshot"
  facility on NetWork Appliance fileservers.  and of the
  various "versioning" filesystems which appeared --- and
  then vanished? --- over the years.... )

 one severe(?) gotcha is some files shouldn't have any
 hard links.  both RCS *,v (and hence CVS) and SCCS s.*
 files are like this --- the RCS(/CVS?)/SCCS toolsets
 complain if there are hard links.

cheers,
	-blf-
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