Is this the best backup plan?

sofasurfer

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Ubuntu 20.04. I do regular backups with Backintime, saving /Home. I also do periodic backups of the system (minus /Home and all the other undesirables) using Timeshift. I think I should also include a backup of /root using the root version of Backintime. Is this correct? Will these three backups allow for a complete functioning restored system?
 
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G'day sofasurfer, Welcome to Linux.org

In your other topic....HERE.....you have said that backintime is not working.

Is this still the case?

Or are you only having trouble on 22.04 exclusively?
 
In Ubunto you have an app called Disks.

It will perform a Disc clone to an external hard drive...basically saving everything....lock, stock and smoking barrel.

I use Timeshift in addition to Disks, and find that suits my purposes nicely.
 
G'day sofasurfer, Welcome to Linux.org

In your other topic....HERE.....you have said that backintime is not working.

Is this still the case?

Or are you only having trouble on 22.04 exclusively?

Yes. 20.04 has Backintime working wonderfully but in 22.04 Backintime does not work. I used 20.04 now and I have 22.04 setup to experiment with.
 
In Ubunto you have an app called Disks.

It will perform a Disc clone to an external hard drive...basically saving everything....lock, stock and smoking barrel.

I use Timeshift in addition to Disks, and find that suits my purposes nicely.
I never know that 'disks' performed an image. I only ever used it to view my partition information. I will have to look into this.
 
Find Disks in the list of apps.....there are three vertical dots up on the right hand side....click on them, and you will see 'Create Disk Image'

Be sure to save it to an External drive. It should ideally be formatted as ext4.

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I create an image of the Drive with Foxclone...https://www.foxclone.com/ and store it on an External HDD. :)
Everything on the Drive ...OS...all files...software...VMs etc is saved as an image to an External HDD and you don't have to format anything either...works with both Linux and windwoes.
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Comes in very handy should your HDD/SSD fail, which is the worst possible case and comes with instructions...just download the ISO and burn it to a Flash Drive...easy.
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Question for you @sofasurfer - are you using the common framework for backintime, which is CLI-based or the GUI which is backintime-qt ?

Cheers

Wiz
 
Ok, it is apparent that because I want to use Jammy Jellyfish (22.04) I will need to alter my backup plan at least temporarily.
Let me ask another question...
It is alwat staed that each backup utility has a specific purpose. Backintime is for /Home backup.. Backintime (root) is for /ruut directory. Timeshift is for whole system backup (minus /Home and /root). And disk imaging is for system duplication. Bow the suggestions in this thread suggest that this all goes out the window. What I am reading is that I might use Timeshift to do a whole system backup every day and when I need a restoration I should restore the entire system, Or I can backup only /Home with Timeshift, make a image of entire system with Disks and restore system with Disks image and restore /Home with Timeshift.
I see no reason why this is not a legitimate option but why all the specificity about backup utilities if this is the case?
Sorry, don't mean to beat a dead horse but if I don't ask I don't learn.
 
After bad experience with hackers (loss of data), I devise my backup plan as follow:
SSD 256G, half for /root, /home and swap, the other half for a backup partition.

1- Occasionally (after a system change) clone /root /home and put the img file on the backup partition.
2- Copy option -rn from /home to /backup
3- Copy option -ru from /home to /backup

Remove whatever I can from /home especially big files like ISO...
The first copy can be long but subsequent ones go fast.
I mount the /backup only when I need something.

The process is repeated from /backup to an external HDD (connected with an electrical switch - yes, before
turning on the switch, I disconnect the ethernet plug !).

Talking about paranoia ! :)
 
Backup plans are a personal preference. As a home user, I prefer to just back up my data, and not my OS or configs. I have 2 external hard drives that I alternate between, and use rsync to run incremental backups. If ever I break my OS, I can just reinstall vanilla, then restore my data, and be back up and running in about an hour.
 
Backups are for noobs!! ;)
 

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