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Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

github.com

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Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#3

Post by metadat »

Can timeshift work with ext4 filesystems?

I know it won't have the atomicity of a CoW fs, but I'd be fine with that, as the important files on my systems aren't often modified, especially during a backup - I'd configure it to disable the systemd timers while the backup process is running.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#4

Post by tombert »

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.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#6

Post by gballan »

metadat wrote: post #3

Can timeshift work with ext4 filesystems? I know it won't have the atomicity of a CoW fs, but I'd be fine with that, as the important files on my systems aren't often modified, especially during a backup - I'd configure it to disable the systemd timers while the backup process is running.

Just getting started with it--but I think so, using rsync.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#8

Post by choward »

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."

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#9

Post by dmitrygr »

> 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 does back up user data.

To me the quoted statement might as well read "a tool similar to knitting needles (in hobby shops) and dremels (in machine shops)"

Reading their description further, it seems like they are implementing something similar to TimeMachine (within the confines of what linux makes possible), and not at all like "System Restore". This seems sane as this implements something that is actually useful. They, sadly, seem to gloss over what the consequences are of using non-btrfs FS with this tool, only mentioning that btrfs is needed for byte-exact snapshots. They do not mention what sort of byte-inexactness ext4 users should expect...

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