No, i have removed Timeshift.Now I only use “Backups” for important folders.
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OK, thanks for the info.
Borked? No, I just arch-chroot and fix it. It’s pretty rare anyway. In 3 years I think I’ve only really had to go in once I can recall, maybe twice to ever fix anything. I even moved the ssd from one computer to another and all I had to do was install grub on the new PC. It’s just not worth dedicating space to a backup when it’s so simple to just chroot.
I am all for keeping things simple, minimalist, so if I can avoid allocating space unnecessarily, I am all for it.
I just read through the arch-chroot instructions in the Arch wiki, but that does not seen like a simple operation at all.
It is a fundamentally different approach. One approach is “when things break, fix them”. The other approach is “when things break, roll back to before they were broken”.
Neither is wrong or right. We just all have different preferences.
There is no doubt you can learn more by fixing the problems you cause. It also requires more knowledge to begin with though so it depends where you are on your Linux journey.
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Really? That’s concerning. In my opinion, everyone in our realm should know how to do it. It’s one of the first few steps in a normal Arch install.
As noted by @dalto, I’ve also been doing this for a while. I remember doing timeshift. It made me feel better at first. It’s not worth my time/space/effort anymore.
Check this out - it’s in the EndeavourOS discovery.
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/system-rescue/arch-chroot-for-efi-uefi-systems/2021/03/
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Good point. Thanks.
I will study that one carefully.
When I was on Mint I did not like Timeshift, and I still don’t like it.
In general, it’s just mount root, mount boot, arch-chroot. BTRFS is a bit more complicated.
The arch-chroot part isn’t that hard. It is the fixing the system part that can be hard. Especially if you made lots of changes and don’t know what caused the breakage.
Also, there are some things that can be fixed by restoring a snapshot that can’t be fixed in a chroot.
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Indeed. If learning is one’s goal, one should not go out of one’s way to avoid situations that are great for learning.
With a proper config backup, and a script that autoconfigures everything, one could solve all problems by reinstalling the OS. It only takes 15-20 minutes to install EndeavourOS, that’s usually less than it takes to troubleshoot something one is not familiar with. But there is nothing to be learnt from doing so. Timeshift snapshots, while undoubtedly more convenient, are very much like that.
Of course, when things break, that’s annoying. But this annoyance is also a great motivator that pushes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to do the uncomfortable thing: learn. All learning is uncomfortable, but it can also be very rewarding, if you have that kind of personality.
That’s why all I’m in favour of “enjoy when things are working, when you break them, fix them, and enjoy learning from the experience.”
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The only reason why I learned a lot over the past year in Linux is that I try a lot of things, and when stuff breaks inevitably break, I fix them.
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Mal abwarten, wie sich die erste Timeshift version schlägt, die von Linux Mint gepflegt wird.
That’s an important point to bear in mind. Thanks for pointing it out.
True. But then you have to add to that the time it takes to reset all the configurations/settings one had before.
Good advice 
With help from this amazing forum.
In my book you try to fix first asking for help if need be, IF you still can’t fix then and only then rollback. Now as for the snapshots not showing up in Timeshift’s GUI I’d bet that it’s due to the same issue that’s been crashing Timeshift for peeps. Just run it from terminal for now.
How do I run Ts from the terminal telling it to create a new snapshot?
What is the advantage of that if that terminal-generated snapshot does not show up in the Ts interface either? Then there is no difference between generating a snapshot from the interface or the terminal? Am I missing something?
Try timeshift --help in a terminal to get a list of commands for creating and managing snapshots.
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The benefit is that the Snapshot does get created. Currently using the GUI to do so doesn’t guarantee that it was actually created.
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