Timeshift alternative: ZFS support and backup user files

[ceratophyllum]

Have I missed something? I'm new to Mint but Timeshift makes no sense to me: why all this fuss to preserve system files you can download anywhere and NO SUPPORT for personal user files backup. I mean, loss of personal files, photos, and documents is a major pain; computer not booting/broken GUI due to borky distro update is a routine hassle that most linux/windows users have probably learned to cope with one way or another.

Also, ZFS has worked really well for a long time. I know there's some lawyer BS about licensing forcing Linux to reinvent it and call it something else (Maybe some remember ogg vs. mp3 silliness years ago?), but is the Oracle or the American DOJ really going to break your door down if you add support for ZFS in Timeshift? Ubuntu install GUI already supports install to ZFS and they haven't been hauled off by the cops.

Anyway, I can always continue using the commandline zfsnap for snapshot management but I'm surprised that after all these years there still seems to be no gui for ZFS snapshot management for any major distro?

[Hoser Rob]

Anyone who doesn't understand that using timeshift to restore your /, including updates, added software, configs, etc, is bettern than having to download Mint again and completely rereconfig and update it again, is in no position whatsoever to lecture anybody about why Mint doesn't use ZFS as a default.

[dave0808]

Have I missed something? I'm new to Mint but Timeshift makes no sense to me: why all this fuss to preserve system files you can download anywhere and NO SUPPORT for personal user files backup. I mean, loss of personal files, photos, and documents is a major pain; computer not booting/broken GUI due to borky distro update is a routine hassle that most linux/windows users have probably learned to cope with one way or another.

You might as well ask: "I'm new to Windows but System Restore makes no sense to me: etc etc."

Yes, if the system gets screwed up by some bad updates (something that's only really happened to me with the nvidia drivers, whilst at work, the Windows boxes are a different story), then a quick restore from Timeshift is a simple procedure requiring no internet access. Where as, trying to restore "system files you can download anywhere" if your network driver is broken would be beyond most users.

[cliffcoggin]

I'm new to Mint but Timeshift makes no sense to me: why all this fuss to preserve system files you can download anywhere and NO SUPPORT for personal user files backup.

Timeshift is designed for people like me who find installing an OS a difficult, anxious, and time wasting process, whereas using Timeshift I can repair the OS with a couple of mouse clicks.

As for personal data files, there are complementary applications such as Back In Time and Grsync designed just for that. Timeshift is the wrong tool for that job.

[ceratophyllum]

Well, I looked around a bit and there were a few attempts to put a GUI on ZFS snapshot management. However they all look abandoned. I think the Lumina DE might have this feature, but it looks kinda dead too. The best I could find was the python script called zyggy, which looked promising but has no support for cron or other automation tools to schedule snapshots. At least it is not written in vala so there's some chance I can make sense of zyggy.

The thing about ZFS that I really like is that it is robust and well-tested and when you send a dataset snapshot, you're definitely getting everything and getting it fast: rsync was mind-blowing 20 years ago, but there's too much to think about before firing it off on data you care about, like what filesystem is on the backup device and a bazillion command line options. I really don't use rsync much. Btrfs' subvolumes also do not make a lot of sense to me as it seems you can put snapshots any old place you want--so much for standards. The main reason I prefer ZFS and (consider using BTRFS) is the ability to scrub, as in perform at least minimal verification that I'm not hanging onto corrupted data.

I guess I'm just a madman: with reasonably current (last 5 years) UEFI PCs, installing Linux is trivial and BSDs are only slightly harder if you have uncommon hardware. (One thing you may find is causing upgrade/installl stress is grub: since I installed the rEFInd bootloader, dual, triple, quadruple+ booting has become very easy, without having to edit any horrible config files or remember to do some magic lilo/bless/update-grub command every time the kernel is updated. Why Linux distros continue using grub has been a mystery to me for years....)

Even crazier: I keep an offline monthly backup of about 1TB on a USB hard disk. I guess I'll just keep using a shell script to (incrementally) do this with zfs send.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Why do you keep wanting to reinvent the wheel? There are already perfectly good programs for making backups in Linux. However, no one program is suited for all types of backups (nor should they be). To most efficiently backup the system and data, data should be kept on a partition or drive and not in /home.

For restoring your system (not your data) to where it was on an earlier date, Timeshift is ideal. The nearest equivalent program in Windows is System Restore. Timeshift is a fast solution for restoring a booting system that got goofed up a little or you just want to revert to a previous state. Making snapshots and restoring them is fast and easy as long as you aren't including data in the snapshots; they can even be made while the computer is still being used. Ifr data is not kept in /home, then system and program settings in /home can also be backed up by including /home in the snapshots.

Imaging with programs like Foxclone, Rescuezilla, or Clonezilla is for restoring a system that no longer boots or when replacing a dead drive with another one. Making and restoring images takes longer and ties up the computer while making or restoring an image.

Snapshots and imaging are the best solutions for fixing or restring system files but are too slow and inefficient and take up too much disk space for backing up data. I use a folder/file syncing program called FreeFileSync (FFS). To oversimplify it, FFS is a high end copy program that will create what essentially is a clone of your data. However, unlike cloning, once the initial backup has been made, only new, changed, or deleted files are involved when updating the backup, making the process much, much faster, and reducing writes dramatically (something of importance to SSDs).

[0309]

Hello,

I'm sorry I don't have anything to contribute to the discussion above, but it is somewhat related. I'm currently unable to use Timeshift. My problem is the same as this user:
viewtopic.php?t=330416

I didn't know Timeshift doesn't support ZFS, otherwise I wouldn't have selected it in the Live USB installer (LM 21 XFCE). In looking for an alternative, I downloaded zfsnap from the Software Manager, but for some reason it says "no such command" when I try it in the terminal.

I'd really rather not re-install Mint at this point. Is there another recommended alternative that accomplishes the same thing as Timeshift? Is FreeFileSync appropriate for this task if I select the proper folders?

[Dullard du Jour]

OK, I will be the curmudgeon here.

I cannot fathom a reason to use ZFS unless you are in an enterprise environment of any size and need extreme data reliability, or you are a Linux geek. I would expect that an extremely high number of Mint users would never, ever need ZFS and will be quite happy with other mainstream file systems...and associated clone and backup tools.

[rene]

Heck, I am a Linux geek and do not use ZFS...

[0309]

So the suggestion here seems to be "bite the bullet and re-install with ext4"?

[rene]

My suggestion certainly but admittedly I don't use e.g. Timeshift; where's the fun in screwing yourself over if you can just Timeshift back with minimal effort? For those that do snapshotting hence btrfs may be an argument.

[0309]

Alright, thank you.

I'll try to find some time next week or so...

[Dullard du Jour]

Alright, thank you.

I'll try to find some time next week or so...

Have you seen the Need Help on GitHub or the ZFSNAP Resource Page?

[callynsky]

Hello. I had the same problem. My solution is the following software:
https://linuxhint.com/install-free-file ... ntu-22-04/

It's worth reading this to know what folders to exclude in the filters:
subsection 3.7 Full system backup
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Rsync# ... tem_backup

Here is help on how to add these "folder and file filters" in FreeFileSync:
https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=exclude-files

Remember to run the program as root. As below:

sudo -i /opt/FreeFileSync/FreeFileSync

You can simplify it with this tutorial:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/ubuntu-e ... s-as-root/

Now I'm glad that timeshift doesn't work because this software is amazing

Have a nice day

Peter