Timeshift-Snapshots

[Stoof2010]

OK well i was hoping someone can shed some light onto this...

Background:

so i did my first install in over a decade and chose mint. did a dual boot with win 10 and all was well until 10 started misbehaving. got sick of messing with it so decided to wipe slate clean with only mint.
i took a snapshot onto a USB of my mint system hoping after the wipe and reinstall i could just restore using snapshot with all my settings and stuff.
but when i wiped everything, did a 20gb primary root and a 4gb swap (same as amount of ram i have o this system) and made the rest a primary /home. when i booted and went into time-shift and mounted the USB it showed that it was there and available space and all but didn't show my snapshot. i could go into file manager nd see the snapshot, but time-shift didn't see it.
so i re-did everything to get my system right and installed all security updates, then took a snapshot on my hard drive. then installed the rest of the updates and took another to the hard drive.

the question is, why didn't it see my old snapshot on the new install? was it because the partitions were different than with the dual boot?

the reason i ask is id like to keep a snapshot on a USB in case i have to wipe and reinstall again. i was under the impression this could be done with timeshift. hoping it was because the partitions were different before and now ill be OK and can do it because i have mint solo on the drive with separate root, home, and swap partitions.

any info you guys and gals have on this would be much appreciated. i'm practically a newbie with how long I've been away from Linux.
thanks

[sdibaja]

sorry, I saw your other post first, so I will repeat myself here:
--
for the time-shift questions I think it is best to ask the developer.
the page is here: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift
and here for your questions, it may have already answered: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues
he seems to answer rapidly
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I believe timeshift is an independent project, but endorsed by Mint. It shows great promise but I don't know if it is capable of doing what you want.

[Cosmo.]

i took a snapshot onto a USB of my mint system hoping after the wipe and reinstall i could just restore using snapshot with all my settings and stuff.

This will most likely not work, but it depends from what you understand with "settings". The usual user settings get done with user permissions (e. g. appearance of the desktop, the panel, settings in applications and much more). This all gets stored in your home. Home gets by default and out of a reason not included in the snapshot. so obviously they cannot get restored by a snapshot. This would be a matter of a classical backup program, Back in Time would be a good choice.

the question is, why didn't it see my old snapshot on the new install?

My first suspicion is, that you did not point to the storage place for the snapshots in the settings of TS. Another question, which file system did you use for the drive, where you stored the snapshot?

[Meeshka]

I have to agree with sdibaja . I have used Timeshift like I used to use System Restore in Windows-to repair a hosed system, not to restore to a fresh install. Maybe it can be used that way, but I didn't think so.

[Cosmo.]

How do you understand this (from the documentation)?

You can also Timeshift across distributions. Let's say you are currently using Xubuntu and decide to try out Linux Mint. You install Linux Mint on your system and try it out for a week before deciding to go back to Xubuntu. Using Timeshift you can simply restore the last week's snapshot to get your Xubuntu system back. Timeshift will take care of things like reinstalling the bootloader and other details.

If it is doable for getting back from Mint to Xubuntu, than you can obviously also get back from a fresh Mint to an older (snapshoted) Mint.
What is needed is a separate home partition - or a backup of home for a separate restoration.

[Meeshka]

I posted before reading your post. My bad. I'm learning something new all the time on this board. Thanks for the info.

[sdibaja]

maybe the wiki will tell you what you need to do: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift ... -Snapshots

[Stoof2010]

ok thanks all.
looks like because the system partitions were different the new install with the separate root and home caused the program not to recognize the snapshot. kind of like if i took my snapshot to your computer and tried it, it wouldn't work. i'm sure that both the system name and the partition table should match for it to be a viable and recognized snapshot on said system.

but now that i have it installed alone on this laptop i should just be able to do a live boot from my USB and use time-shift to restore my mint image.

i am curious if i tried with a snapshot now and wiped and reinstalled with identical name and partitions if it would work. not that i plan to try but does make me wonder.