Boot in Timeshift. (Solved)

[HaveaMint]

Where did you see "Boot" into Timeshift? One snapshot a month is all you really need, it doesn't take long to bring any updates up to par.

[mikeflan]

I assume that creates a snapshot when you start your computer:

[antikythera]

yes, it runs a snapshot 5 minutes after you login to your pc after you start it up (or restart it).

Don't keep too many snapshots or you will find your drive space eaten up in no time. If you let / or /home get too full you may not be able to login to your system. I have mine set to keep 2x daily and 2x boot. Sometimes the two are marked for the same snapshot if it's been a day since you last started the PC. So you'll either have 2, 3 or 4 snapshots saved in total at any one time.

[motoryzen]

Figures antikythera ( one of the most consistent and top about 30 ish helpful people I've seen on this site ) would knock a home run xD

Chickynuggiez if your question has been answered/resolved please go back and edit your original post to include " solved " or ( solved ) so others will know you're good to go on this topic.

Happy to see it appears via your response that is the case . I learned something new in this topic too. Cheers everyone.

[pbear]

... is the 2 timeshifts i use sufficient?

There's no one-size-fits-all answer. How many are sufficient depends on how much you change your system from day-to-day, how often you run updates, whether this is your main computer (meaning you'll notice problems right away) and how good your troubleshooting skills if you discover a week from now an update messed up something. Personally, I think the default of five days is pretty good for most new users. If you want more cushion, add two monthly, which turns out to be anywhere from 1 to 2 month look back (if the latest monthly was taken yesterday, that counts as one of the two).

There's no reason to worry about how many snapshots you have. In effect, Timeshift makes only one copy of each file in the system. Five snapshots where the system hasn't changed take only a trivial amount more space than one snapshot. Where people get in trouble is changing the defaults (especially using Timeshift to backup data files, don't do that) or using a root + home partition scheme based on old tutorials, so the root partition isn't large enough for both the system and snapshots. The solution to the latter problem is to use a larger root partition or save snapshots somewhere else.

Enough abstract comments. You snapshots are saved on some partition or another (if you don't remember, check Settings > Location). How much free space does that partition have? If unsure, open Disks (it's an app on Menu). What does it say?

[Cosmo.]

yes, it runs a snapshot 5 minutes after you login to your pc after you start it up (or restart it).

Correction, it are 10 minutes. Easily to read in the screenshot above.

Don't keep too many snapshots or you will find your drive space eaten up in no time.

This shouldn't be a problem, if the partition, where the snapshots get stored, is big enough. This partition must not necessarily be the root or the home partition and in this case it is even impossible, that space drive gets eaten up. Further more: The more often snapshots get created, the even greater part of a snapshot is nothing than a number of additional hard links with 0 byte space needed.

I had given some values about this topic: viewtopic.php?p=2183735#p2183735 In short: 40 GB snapshots for a 15 GB root partition system with 21 snapshots stored.

[antikythera]

Yeah, if the partition is big enough. The issue is that in a lot of cases it isn't. You get a number of people posting here that cannot boot or access home because their timeshift snapshots have filled their root or home partition due to taking as much space again as their system files or they were already short on space through a load of personal files in home which quite rightly they want to keep.

It's not always possible to have a separate snapshot partition due to a small HDD or SSD. In those instances, manual rather than scheduled snapshots to external media are the best option.

At least the install guide if anyone bothers reading it these days recommends 100GB for root if you can spare it. Personally I have found 50GB is a decent amount and I have added a fair amount of programs to LMDE5 which when installed already has the equivalent package set to Cinnamon 20.3.

[Cosmo.]

If the partition, where the snapshots get stored, is too small, than even a single snapshot can eat the space up. It obviously needs the currently used space without the swap file. This means, that a size of 20 GB (officially said as minimum requirement) is only good for demonstrating the principle, not for working with that machine.

My first computer with a hard drive had 20 MB (!) space. I remember, that I thought "Boy, you will never fill only the half of it". But, the times they are a-changing (Bob Dylan).

[AndyMH]

We get far too many 'I can't boot' posts from new users where the culprit is timeshift. Now that mint has assumed responsibility for maintenance surely it is not too difficult to do something along the lines of

Code: Select all

if root <= 50GB then;
   invite user to choose a different destination
fi

when timeshift is enabled?

[Cosmo.]

Seems to be a usable way. Perhaps system report can be used for that. Besides that: I am excited to read the minimum requirements for LM 21. I consider the too small root partition as the culprit, not timeshift.

[cliffcoggin]

I consider the too small root partition as the culprit, not timeshift.

Very true. In that respect Timeshift is no different from any other large quantity of data. You can't squeeze a quart into a pint pot, to put it in beer terms. It would be helpful if Timeshift could warn if the space available was insufficient before storing a snapshot.

[antikythera]

It would be helpful if Timeshift could warn if the space available was insufficient before storing a snapshot.

Indeed, the irony is it calculates the size of the snapshot before showing drives to select as the destination when you run the setup wizard. So yes, you'd think it would hide small partitions with hardly any space.

[Cosmo.]

@ChickyNuggiez:
Linux reserves 5 % of the space for its own usage. A little math: 5 % of 500 is 25. 102 - 77 = 25. So all is OK.

[Cosmo.]

There has been announced in the blog a tray icon for timeshift. We will have to wait to find out, what it does and what it can.

[AndyMH]

Given that mint has taken responsibility for maintaining timeshift, thereby freeing up Tony George for other things (aptik), where does one report 'bugs' now for timeshift?

[Cosmo.]

https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift/issues

[Cosmo.]

Now that mint has assumed responsibility for maintenance surely it is not too difficult to do something along the lines of

Code: Select all

if root <= 50GB then;
   invite user to choose a different destination
fi

when timeshift is enabled?

Perhaps there is some improvement in the next version, we will have to wait, until it is packaged. See https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift/issues/13

[Cosmo.]

So will timeshift be letting people know that their snapshots are too large for their Drives, so they dont get locked out from now on?

To early to answer finally, but to my understanding this might be. https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift/issues/13

[AndyMH]

https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift/issues

Done
https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift/issues/23

[AndyMH]

And that's what I call a quick response, fixed:
https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift/issues/23
I assume this will be pushed out as an update to timeshift.