[ale] backing up

[Cy Kurtz]

Ok, after years and years of losing things, I'm finally
starting to back up. This is probably a simple problem.

I have a directory called username on my safe drive(the one I don't
roast once a week or so). Every time I install a different distro I copy
these directories: pics, mail, and sigs from my 'safe' drive into my
/home/username directory(I gotta start putting /home on my safe drive, I
know).

Well, every time I restore my pics, mail, and sigs directories they
do not contain the more recent files, so I decided to start backing up
those directories(at least) more regularly.

I'm using this command:

cp -bRu /home/username/pics /safedrive/username

which works fine(once I pounded out the cp alias line in .bashrc causing
the ^&*! thing to ask me to confirm every file) except that this command
copies every file in /home/username/pics to /safedrive/username/pics
and slaps a '~' on the end and does not overwrite the target file,
cleverly doubling storage needs.

I want my machine to update the files that exist in
/safedrive/username/pics, copy any files that exist only in
/home/username/pics to /safedrive/username/pics, and take no action on any
files in /safedrive/username/pics that are the same as their counterparts
in /home/username/pics are the same.

Should I be using -a(archive)?

Thanks for reading all this crap,

Cy Kurtz

-- 
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its
hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that
position you can make a crowd of men.
                                 -- Max Beerbohm



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