RE: [TCLUG:2611] Great error messages (was: JDK-1.1.7/Motif fix--use a SledgeHammer)

["Eric Hillman" <ehillman@cccu.com>]

> >..
> > This is an especially good idea when updating libc... ;-) (ever had 'ls'
> > segfault on you before?)


> My favorite was "/usr/bin/ls not found".  That was when I found out I had
> written a backup to the partition holding /usr instead of the tape drive.
> Opps.
>
> Too bad it was our production server and I didn't have a full backup...


	The best error message *I've* ever gotten from a Linux box was,
coincidentally, also associated with a mal-upgrade of libc (causing 'mount',
'passwd', and 'login' to segfault, among others.)  Luckily, I had a complete
set of backup tapes.  Unluckily, I had never actually had to restore a linux
system from tape before.  Also unluckily, I had set up backups in such a way
as to get dump to write multiple partitions to a single tape, something it
wasn't designed to do, without considering that restore was *also* never
designed to handle multi-volume tapes.
	Anyways, in the midst of trying to convince the scsi tape drive to digest
my DDS tapes and get the freaking box working again, I got this error
message:

	'Tape drive failure:  Success'

	And at that moment, I was enlightened.