I have a dreamwidth account (http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org) because I think it is better than LJ. But seeing as I have a permanent account with LJ, I'll be crossposting to both journals. In fact, I am already crossposting to both journals.

Downloading your LJ; the only thing I've found that works on Linux is ljmigrate, which one can use to upload to another service, but one can also use it to just back up one's LJ.