Just so everyone knows what I'm doing, here is what I'm doing: $ls -al ~ | tail -n 5 -rw-r--r-- 1 myusername users 222118 2008-11-28 10:23 untitled.JPG -rwxr-xr-x 1 myusername users 172 2008-03-12 12:14 wmamp3 drwxr-xr-x 4 myusername users 4096 2008-10-05 22:41 workspace -rw-r--r-- 1 myusername users 1041452 2008-11-18 21:29 xine-out.wav -rw-r--r-- 1 myusername users 0 2009-07-21 21:18 zero.trf $cp -a --preserve=all ~ /media/bigdrive/backups/ $ls -al /media/bigdrive/backups | tail -n 5 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 222118 2008-11-28 10:23 untitled.JPG -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 172 2008-03-12 12:14 wmamp3 drwxrwxrwx 4 root root 4096 2008-10-05 22:41 workspace -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1041452 2008-11-18 21:29 xine-out.wav -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2009-07-21 21:18 zero.trf I've been using this stuff enough to know what's in the man pages and how to use google. No matter what though, the output is the same whether I'm running it from within my Arch install or from a live cd like ubuntu. On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Patrick Brisbin<pbrisbin@gmail.com> wrote:
On 07/30/09 at 12:39pm, solsTiCe d'Hiver wrote:
I tried a simple 'cp -av' [...] and find that everything is set to root / root
if you want to preserve permission, you need to use -p too.
Do you know that there exists something called the man pages (the manual pages) for each command on your system ? so if you run 'man cp', you get a list of all the options of cp and how it works.
man cp said:
-a --archive same as -dR --preserve=all
so shouldn't -a work just fine? (-p is --preserve btw) it worked fine for me when i migrated from 32 to 64 bit by reinstalling and restoring /home /etc
-- patrick brisbin