Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#11

Post by fallingsquirrel » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

choward wrote: post #8

tombert wrote: post #4

This reminds me of the default behavior of NixOS. Whenever you make a change in the configuration for NixOS and rebuild it, it takes a snapshot of the system configurations and lets you restore after a reboot if you screw something up. Similarly, it doesn't do anything in regards to user files.

I can't tell you the number of times I see a project and think to myself "NixOS already solves that problem but better."

In fairness, this app supports snapshotting your home directory as well, and that's not solvable with Nix alone. In fact, I'm running NixOS and I've been meaning to set up Timeshift or Snapper for my homedir, but alas, I haven't found the time.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#12

Post by fallingsquirrel » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:14 PM UTC

phoe-krk wrote: post #5

I'd like some sort of a comparison with Duplicity/Déjà Dup that seems to be the default on Gnome/Cinnamon.

Different categories of app. Duplicity is geared toward backing up files to a separate machine, and this tool snapshots your filesystem on the same machine.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#13

Post by phoe-krk » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:15 PM UTC

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #12

phoe-krk wrote: post #5

I'd like some sort of a comparison with Duplicity/Déjà Dup that seems to be the default on Gnome/Cinnamon.

Different categories of app. Duplicity is geared toward backing up files to a separate machine, and this tool snapshots your filesystem on the same machine.

OK, thanks. I was confused because Time Machine is capable of backing up to a remote device.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#14

Post by ThinkBeat » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:16 PM UTC

A bit of a side note and a bit of old man reveal, it would be nifty to have the backup system write the snapshots to cd/dvd/bluray disk.

I remember working in a company that had a robot WORM system. It would grab a disc, it would be processed, take it out, place it among the archives. If a restore as needed the robot would find the backup, and read off the data.

I never worked directly on the system, and I seem to remember there was a window that the system could keep track of (naturally) but older disks were stored off site somewhere for however long that window was.

(Everything was replicated to a fully 100% duplicate system geographically highly separated from the production system.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#15

Post by autoexecbat » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

choward wrote: post #8

tombert wrote: post #4

This reminds me of the default behavior of NixOS. Whenever you make a change in the configuration for NixOS and rebuild it, it takes a snapshot of the system configurations and lets you restore after a reboot if you screw something up. Similarly, it doesn't do anything in regards to user files.

I can't tell you the number of times I see a project and think to myself "NixOS already solves that problem but better."

I've seen the configuration.nix file, it doesn't look like it captures specific versions. How does it handle snapshotting?

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#16

Post by nijave » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:23 PM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #9

> similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS This makes no sense! System Restore is a useless wart that just wastes time making "restore points" at every app/driver install and can rarely (if ever) produce a working system when used to "restore" anything. It does not back up user data at all. Time Machine is a whole-system backup solution that seems to work quite well and doe…

I believe System Restore takes a registry backup and can recover from a bad driver install but it's been years since I used it last. I think just about anything System Restore does can be replicated by "just fixing it" in Safe Mode but I think System Restore is geared for less technical folks.

Newer versions of Windows have File History to backup user data (I don't think they have an integrated system/file solution quite like Time Machine though).

However it makes some sense to keep system/user data separate. You don't want to lose your doc edits because you happened to have a bad driver upgrade at the same time. Likewise, you don't want to roll your entire system back to get an old version of a doc.

Time Machine is trivial to implement (without the UI) with disk snapshots (that's what it does--store disk snapshots to an external disk)

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#17

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:24 PM UTC

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #11

choward wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell you the number of times I see a project and think to myself "NixOS already solves that problem but better."

In fairness, this app supports snapshotting your home directory as well, and that's not solvable with Nix alone. In fact, I'm running NixOS and I've been meaning to set up Timeshift or Snapper for my homedir, but alas, I haven't found the time.

Is there something about your home directory that you'd want to back up that is not covered by invoking home manager as a nix module as part if nixos-rebuild?

https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/index.xhtml#sec...

To me, it's better than a filesystem-backup because the things that make it into home manager tend to be exactly the things that I want to back up. The rest of it (e.g. screenshots, downloads) aren't something I'd want in a backup scheme anyhow.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#18

Post by nijave » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:26 PM UTC

exe34 wrote: post #7

oh this brings back memories, i found a script that did this about 15 years ago. it kept three versions of backups using rsync and hard-links to avoid duplication.

https://rsnapshot.org/ ?

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#19

Post by gballan » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:35 PM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #14

A bit of a side note and a bit of old man reveal, it would be nifty to have the backup system write the snapshots to cd/dvd/bluray disk. I remember working in a company that had a robot WORM system. It would grab a disc, it would be processed, take it out, place it among the archives. If a restore as needed the robot would find the backup, and read off the data. I never worked directly on the system, and I seem to re…

AFAIK timeshift can use any mount. I tried a USB stick, but it was too slow. Now I'm experimenting with a partition on a second drive.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#20

Post by fallingsquirrel » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 10:42 PM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #17

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, this app supports snapshotting your home directory as well, and that's not solvable with Nix alone. In fact, I'm running NixOS and I've been meaning to set up Timeshift or Snapper for my homedir, but alas, I haven't found the time.

Is there something about your home directory that you'd want to back up that is not covered by invoking home manager as a nix module as part if nixos-rebuild? https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/index.xhtml#sec... To me, it's better than a filesystem-backup because the things that make it into home manager tend to be exactly the things that I want to back up. The rest of it (e.g. screenshots, downloads) aren…

I want to keep snapshots of my work. I run nightly backups which have come in handy numerous times, but accessing the cloud storage is always slow, and sometimes I've even paid a few cents in bandwidth to download my own files. It would be a lot smoother if everything was local and I could grep through /.snapshots//.