Does Linux use System Restore Disks?

[jjconstr]

Being used to system restore disks in Windows, makes me want one for Ubuntu. But is it neccessary or is there something else?

 

[Condobloke]

G'day jjconstr, and Welcome to linix.org

Some may use disks to keep a record of the initial install and subsequent points that are worthy of saving....just in case things go pear shaped.

However, I find it far more comforting/accurate to use an app/program called Timeshift

Timeshift works in much the same way as system restore.....probably the notable difference is that it works

Timeshift A System Restore Utility Tool Review | LinuxAndUbuntu

TimeShift is a system restore tool for Linux. It provides functionality that is quite similar to the System Restore feature in Windows or the Time Machine

www.linuxandubuntu.com

There are many reviews etc etc of Timeshift....there is also one on this forum, written and maintained by @wizardfromoz ....whos is sure to drop by and provide a link to it.
from
Put simply. it should be either in the repository for whatever OS you are using or it is downloadable via a ppa (sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa)

then.... (sudo apt-get update)

It is a good idea to save the 'snapshots that this app takes to an external hard drive......because it keeps them safe and because it allows you quite a bit of space......the snapshots can take quite a bit of room !

HAVE A READ

more later

EDIT TO ADD: https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/

 

[jjconstr]

G'day jjconstr, and Welcome to linix.org

Some may use disks to keep a record of the initial install and subsequent points that are worthy of saving....just in case things go pear shaped.

However, I find it far more comforting/accurate to use an app/program called Timeshift

Timeshift works in much the same way as system restore.....probably the notable difference is that it works

Timeshift A System Restore Utility Tool Review | LinuxAndUbuntu

TimeShift is a system restore tool for Linux. It provides functionality that is quite similar to the System Restore feature in Windows or the Time Machine

www.linuxandubuntu.com

There are many reviews etc etc of Timeshift....there is also one on this forum, written and maintained by @wizardfromoz ....whos is sure to drop by and provide a link to it.
from
Put simply. it should be either in the repository for whatever OS you are using or it is downloadable via a ppa (sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa)

then.... (sudo apt-get update)

It is a good idea to save the 'snapshots that this app takes to an external hard drive......because it keeps them safe and because it allows you quite a bit of space......the snapshots can take quite a bit of room !

HAVE A READ

more later

EDIT TO ADD: https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/

Thank you! I'd seen timeshift mentioned and was going to look into it eventually. But, I'm glad you clarified for me what it does and that it can replace System Restore Disks. I assume the timeshift interface has the option to save snapshots to external drives? And it includes all settings and apps in the snapshots?

 

[Condobloke]

I assume the timeshift interface has the option to save snapshots to external drives? And it includes all settings and apps in the snapshots?

Yes it saves snapshots to an external drive.....you will set the exact place for the snapshots to be stored in the setting up procedure....Also how many/how often snapshots will be taken.

Yes it will also dutifully copy all apps etc

It has 'saved my bacon' on more than one occasion.

 

[wizardfromoz]

g'day jj, i see you've met my fellow aussie brian

just to clarify what he said in his first post - 3 lines at Terminal

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install timeshift

"teejee" is for Tony George, who writes software in India, but does the Linux side of things mostly as a labour of love.

around 1 October coming up, i will have been using TS for 6 years, and as for

It has 'saved my bacon' on more than one occasion.

... a truer word was never spoken.

my thread on it is here

https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/

and it rambles on a bit, but if you read it, you'll get a good idea, and any questions you have, you can ask them there.

the distro known as Linux Lite also have a concise tute here

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/tutorials.html#timeshift

cheers

wiz

 

[70 Tango Charlie]

@jjconstr @wizardfromoz @Condobloke

When I got into computers around 1993, a friend got me into Windows. I soon learned to use System Restore. Transitioning to Timeshift was not much of a learning curve.
I have used Timeshift for a couple of years now and have used it a few times, to 'save my bacon'.
TS is a great program and anyone using Linux should be using it; to 'save their bacon' if the need ever arises. I believe that TS should be one of the first things a Linux newbie should get familiar with. They will be forever grateful.
Just some thoughts from an........
Old Geezer
Tango Charlie

 

[jglen490]

I tend to stay away from Timeshift, as out of the box it's only useful for rolling back a bad update. It's a rollback, not a re-install. Don't get me wrong, Timeshift is useful, but unless you purposefully set it up to be a backup application it does not do backups, only rollbacks of specific changes.

My "restore disk" is the USB thumb drive that has the Live installer of the latest version that I'm running (currently Kubuntu 18.04.4 LTS - soon to be 20.04 LTS). I DO perform a backup of my separate /home partition to a rotating set of external, attachable USB hard drives in enclosures, and use rsync on the command line to do it.

I do not worry about backing up the / partition, because 1) I do not "experiment" on my operational/primary desktop PC, and 2) I do not play with PPA repositories (except for the one with Nvidia drivers), and 3) I do practice safe computing (i.e., do not click on random email links, do not go to sketchy sites, etc.).

The only problems I've ever had have been the results of hardware failures, although rarely a Kubuntu update will cause some transient strangeness which is always corrected quickly.

 

[sp331yi]

There is clonezilla . . . and others. Snapshot in certain distros has been mentioned, I would hope.

 

[issa mohamed]

More than 95% of the organizations and companies using linux, they run it on a virtual machine with no GUI. so it will be you against your black screen and that's where you perform your daily tasks. so if you are using your linux in the corporate environment, maybe lets say you are system administrator or system engineer, you will be using virtualization technologies and almost all of them have a snapshot tool whereby it's recommended to take one before you do any major tasks so that if anything happens you can still restore back from that snapshot. i stand to be corrected.

Best Regards,
Issa.

 

[Condobloke]

and there you go, jjconstr ....the topic can get more and more complex as more and more of the guys and gals weigh in with their two point five cents worth....based on their own experiences and on the value that they attach to the data etc on their pc's.....

For a basic pc user who perhaps browses the internet on a huge variety of topics (from why do my dogs farts smell so much to how to cook chicken calderita etc)....none of them being 'mission critical',... chats to people etc etc on facebook, listening to and storeing some music, receiveing and sending emails , maybe using gmail.....and a few other fairly non world shifting pursuits.... the music is perhaps the hard one to replace....the long lost album by woodie guthrie etc etc...should have some means of being "backed up".....so that in the case of the green haired gunglebum doing a number on your Linux etc etc....and seemingly destroying all that you have saved.

Timeshift. Read all you can and set it up in an appropriate manner to suit your needs/wishes

(gmail is good because it stores your emails on its servers....so no need to keep a backup of that....you have to set gmail up properly for this to happen.....I use gmail because it gives me 15gb of storage....Free. I can store an enormous amount of info in emails on gmail for zero cost. I access gmail via Thunderbird Mail, made by Mozilla)

Because I operate a little outside of the basic sphere, I also use Clonezilla monthly (approx) to store a full backup on yet another hard drive. Clonezilla uses rsync....which has nifty little 'algorithms" that calculate the differences between a previous backup and the current one being done and it only adds the differences between files...not the whole file
There are other backup programs....many of them.....and every man and his dog will have a preference due to their experiences.

The simpler and faster it is to make a backup, the more likely you are to do so

Clonezilla....I used a usb stick (thumb drive, pen drive etc ) and put clonezilla on it in exactly the same way as you have just made a usb stick with linux on it...in other words I used unetbootin or one of the similar apps to make a live usb stick.
I shutdown my pc and plug in the usb stick with c'zilla on it and then startup again. Because the usb stick is 'live' the pc boots to that stick. (i select to boot to the usb in the boot up process)
I then follow the clonezilla program through to its end where it will put a full backup onto the identified separate hard drive. (Following the prompts and getting them in the correct order etc etc is a minefield....not for the faint hearted at first sight)....but when the pc actually starts to do the backup, just READ on the screen what it is backing up and where it is sending it to and if that information is wrong....then CANCEL it immediately. There will be no harm done.

OR

The 15 Best Backup Software For Linux Desktop

Backup Software for Linux helps to recover from some unexpected situations like human errors, Disk failure or RAID, Corruption of file systems.

www.ubuntupit.com

https://www.howtogeek.com/110138/how-to-back-up-your-linux-system-with-back-in-time/ ....(this one is good)

There is always the possibility that you dont need a full backup.
Only you know the full value of the stuff on your PC

If you want a TRULY simple backup.......just attach an external hard drive ....have it open on the pc.....and simply drag and drop or copy and paste the information that you wish to save, over to it.

What a minefield !..... your topic did not start out to be as complex as this !

If the topic has evolved into something that is just toooooo complicated and unnecessary.......just set up Timeshift, and be a happy camper.

Being happy and relaxed is what LInux is all about. Enjoy it....dont be a slave to it. Thats what windows is for.

 

[Deleted member 58530]

For a basic pc user who perhaps browses the internet on a huge variety of topics (from why do my dogs farts smell so much

Hmm I've never wondered why my dogs farts smell so much or for that matter why my farts smell so much.


Well being one who just installs and uses Linux OOTB I have no need for backup software.

If I break my Linux distro it only takes 45 minutes to reinstall from scratch and be back up and running.

Any data that I consider worth saving and needing to be saved gets coped / saved to 2 separate usb thumb drives immediately and if really important gets burned to an old fashion CD / DVD.

Timeshift is OK but I ain't got no use for it and if you don't regularly clean old backups off it will use up a lot of space on a hard drive.

 

[jjconstr]

Yes it saves snapshots to an external drive.....you will set the exact place for the snapshots to be stored in the setting up procedure....Also how many/how often snapshots will be taken.

Yes it will also dutifully copy all apps etc

It has 'saved my bacon' on more than one occasion.

Got it! Now am less worried about trying things I know nothing about!

 

[jjconstr]

G'day jjconstr, and Welcome to linix.org

Some may use disks to keep a record of the initial install and subsequent points that are worthy of saving....just in case things go pear shaped.

However, I find it far more comforting/accurate to use an app/program called Timeshift

Timeshift works in much the same way as system restore.....probably the notable difference is that it works

Timeshift A System Restore Utility Tool Review | LinuxAndUbuntu

TimeShift is a system restore tool for Linux. It provides functionality that is quite similar to the System Restore feature in Windows or the Time Machine

www.linuxandubuntu.com

There are many reviews etc etc of Timeshift....there is also one on this forum, written and maintained by @wizardfromoz ....whos is sure to drop by and provide a link to it.
from
Put simply. it should be either in the repository for whatever OS you are using or it is downloadable via a ppa (sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa)

then.... (sudo apt-get update)

It is a good idea to save the 'snapshots that this app takes to an external hard drive......because it keeps them safe and because it allows you quite a bit of space......the snapshots can take quite a bit of room !

HAVE A READ

more later

EDIT TO ADD: https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/

Timeshift is great. I have peace of mind now. I will/have saved snapshot to external toshiba 1T drive. Thanks so much for the help.

 

[jjconstr]

g'day jj, i see you've met my fellow aussie brian

just to clarify what he said in his first post - 3 lines at Terminal

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install timeshift

"teejee" is for Tony George, who writes software in India, but does the Linux side of things mostly as a labour of love.

around 1 October coming up, i will have been using TS for 6 years, and as for



... a truer word was never spoken.

my thread on it is here

https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/

and it rambles on a bit, but if you read it, you'll get a good idea, and any questions you have, you can ask them there.

the distro known as Linux Lite also have a concise tute here

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/tutorials.html#timeshift

cheers

wiz

Thanks, wiz. I like the idea that this Linux endeavor is so very world wide. Makes me feel at one with those in other countries. Lst summer I worked for a few weeks on a second home owned by a couple Aussies. Fallons, by name. They were here in US. Nice people.

 

[jjconstr]

@jjconstr @wizardfromoz @Condobloke

When I got into computers around 1993, a friend got me into Windows. I soon learned to use System Restore. Transitioning to Timeshift was not much of a learning curve.
I have used Timeshift for a couple of years now and have used it a few times, to 'save my bacon'.
TS is a great program and anyone using Linux should be using it; to 'save their bacon' if the need ever arises. I believe that TS should be one of the first things a Linux newbie should get familiar with. They will be forever grateful.
Just some thoughts from an........
Old Geezer
Tango Charlie

TC, I am eternally grateful! I have my first snapshot saved elsewhere. Earlier this year, I made my first Windows system repair disk and needed it a couple weeks later! It can happen when least expected! Using some advice from another thread on cleaning out the trash, I was warned to be careful because the commands or choices could brakes something. Now it is much less worry. Thank you!

 

[jjconstr]

I tend to stay away from Timeshift, as out of the box it's only useful for rolling back a bad update. It's a rollback, not a re-install. Don't get me wrong, Timeshift is useful, but unless you purposefully set it up to be a backup application it does not do backups, only rollbacks of specific changes.

My "restore disk" is the USB thumb drive that has the Live installer of the latest version that I'm running (currently Kubuntu 18.04.4 LTS - soon to be 20.04 LTS). I DO perform a backup of my separate /home partition to a rotating set of external, attachable USB hard drives in enclosures, and use rsync on the command line to do it.

I do not worry about backing up the / partition, because 1) I do not "experiment" on my operational/primary desktop PC, and 2) I do not play with PPA repositories (except for the one with Nvidia drivers), and 3) I do practice safe computing (i.e., do not click on random email links, do not go to sketchy sites, etc.).

The only problems I've ever had have been the results of hardware failures, although rarely a Kubuntu update will cause some transient strangeness which is always corrected quickly.

Sounds like you have it all under control. Am happy for you. Maybe someday I will be confident to follow suit. For now being uninitiated, I need the extra security. Cheers

 

[Condobloke]

Pay a little attention to the number of snapshots that you keep on the external.....i dont have my linux in front of me atm...I am reduced to using win 10.......been overseas for an extended period,,,pc's still in packing boxes and have not found their way back to me yet) but I seem to remember there is a setting to automatically delete snapshots older than X days/weeks ?

I will usually keep one snapshot per month providing the pc is running well......if it is not running well for some reason I pay attention to why it is not running well and then as soon as I have running as it should, I then Take a snapshot manually....I think it is called a snapshot on demand.

If ever you need to delete a snapshot Manually....do it from the app/program.....Not from the external drive. It takes a while to delete one so be patient.

 

[jjconstr]

and there you go, jjconstr ....the topic can get more and more complex as more and more of the guys and gals weigh in with their two point five cents worth....based on their own experiences and on the value that they attach to the data etc on their pc's.....

For a basic pc user who perhaps browses the internet on a huge variety of topics (from why do my dogs farts smell so much to how to cook chicken calderita etc)....none of them being 'mission critical',... chats to people etc etc on facebook, listening to and storeing some music, receiveing and sending emails , maybe using gmail.....and a few other fairly non world shifting pursuits.... the music is perhaps the hard one to replace....the long lost album by woodie guthrie etc etc...should have some means of being "backed up".....so that in the case of the green haired gunglebum doing a number on your Linux etc etc....and seemingly destroying all that you have saved.

Timeshift. Read all you can and set it up in an appropriate manner to suit your needs/wishes

(gmail is good because it stores your emails on its servers....so no need to keep a backup of that....you have to set gmail up properly for this to happen.....I use gmail because it gives me 15gb of storage....Free. I can store an enormous amount of info in emails on gmail for zero cost. I access gmail via Thunderbird Mail, made by Mozilla)

Because I operate a little outside of the basic sphere, I also use Clonezilla monthly (approx) to store a full backup on yet another hard drive. Clonezilla uses rsync....which has nifty little 'algorithms" that calculate the differences between a previous backup and the current one being done and it only adds the differences between files...not the whole file
There are other backup programs....many of them.....and every man and his dog will have a preference due to their experiences.

The simpler and faster it is to make a backup, the more likely you are to do so

Clonezilla....I used a usb stick (thumb drive, pen drive etc ) and put clonezilla on it in exactly the same way as you have just made a usb stick with linux on it...in other words I used unetbootin or one of the similar apps to make a live usb stick.
I shutdown my pc and plug in the usb stick with c'zilla on it and then startup again. Because the usb stick is 'live' the pc boots to that stick. (i select to boot to the usb in the boot up process)
I then follow the clonezilla program through to its end where it will put a full backup onto the identified separate hard drive. (Following the prompts and getting them in the correct order etc etc is a minefield....not for the faint hearted at first sight)....but when the pc actually starts to do the backup, just READ on the screen what it is backing up and where it is sending it to and if that information is wrong....then CANCEL it immediately. There will be no harm done.

OR

The 15 Best Backup Software For Linux Desktop

Backup Software for Linux helps to recover from some unexpected situations like human errors, Disk failure or RAID, Corruption of file systems.

www.ubuntupit.com

https://www.howtogeek.com/110138/how-to-back-up-your-linux-system-with-back-in-time/ ....(this one is good)

There is always the possibility that you dont need a full backup.
Only you know the full value of the stuff on your PC

If you want a TRULY simple backup.......just attach an external hard drive ....have it open on the pc.....and simply drag and drop or copy and paste the information that you wish to save, over to it.

What a minefield !..... your topic did not start out to be as complex as this !

If the topic has evolved into something that is just toooooo complicated and unnecessary.......just set up Timeshift, and be a happy camper.

Being happy and relaxed is what LInux is all about. Enjoy it....dont be a slave to it. Thats what windows is for.

You made the decision simple for me when you said set up timeshift and be a happy camper. I dont know enough to go with more complicated methods. Too new to this tech stuff. Stay well down under.

 

[jjconstr]

Pay a little attention to the number of snapshots that you keep on the external.....i dont have my linux in front of me atm...I am reduced to using win 10.......been overseas for an extended period,,,pc's still in packing boxes and have not found their way back yo me yet) but I seem to remember there is a setting to automatically delete snapshots older than X days/weeks ?

I will usually keep one snapshot per month providing the pc is running well......if it is not running well for some reason I pay attention to why it is not running well and then as soon as I have running as it should, I then Take a snapshot manually....I think it is called a snapshot on demand.

If ever you need to delete a snapshot Manually....do it from the app/program.....Not from the external drive. It takes a while to delete one so be patient.

Good advice, thanks!

 

[wizardfromoz]

as out of the box it's only useful for rolling back a bad update

totally disagree with that one, but late for me, so i will illustrate on my tomorrow.

nite all

wiz