Timeshift on Rolling Release?

[anon59358842]

I know Timeshift from Linux Mint. There I found it quite useful. Now I consider to install it also here at EOS, but I have doubts about the sense of a rolling release. I want to keep everything on my system as minimal as possible. Again it seems to me that Timeshift is just unnecessary ballast. My data is backed up manually on a backup HDD anyway.

[anon3337769]

It’s strictly a personal preference.

I have never used any type of system backup, and have seen no need for it in the 4 years that I’ve been running Arch.

Others swear by it. It just depends on how you want to do things.

[keybreak]

Well if you’re 100% certain on your Arch skills - i’d say it’s not necessary.

But for newcomer and average user it’s probably advisable to have, just to quickly get out of problems if something arise after update and you’re in a hurry…

[xircon]

If anything, Timeshift is more important on a rolling release as there is more chance of something hitting the fan

[anon59358842]

Thanks for the answers. The die is cast.

[manuel]

Like the others say or imply, personal data backup is the most important thing to have.
The system can always be reinstalled, but personal data may be impossible to recover e.g. on a bad disk failure.

[freebird54]

Arch comes with a sort of timeshift capability of its own - so timeshift is less necessary than you would expect. It is simple to configure the package system to ‘back up’ or revert to any given previous date - thus eliminating packages as the source of problems.

I have a script for this - and am working on including it for use with the Welcome app. If anyone is interested - it isn’t long or complicated!

[Beardedgeek72]

The true benefits of Timeshift are four compared to Arch’s package management:

1. manual or scheduled backups whenever you want
2. Auto-cleaning (I know you can set the option in EOS welcome app but it’s not default in vanilla Arch) of old backups
3. The ability to extend the backup to also cover personal files
4. The ability to put the backup on a different HDD, aka a true backup.

[manuel]

@freebird54

If anyone is interested - it isn’t long or complicated!

After that kind of ad, of course “anyone” is interested! Just publish it under the Community contributions…

[freebird54]

All very true - and the points are well taken. However, I have been running it for quite a while now, and have only used it to revert as mentioned above. My main objection to the way it works, is that while it can save to another partition, or drive, it does not seem to allow multiple timeshift ‘instances’ to be placed together (hard-coded destinations directory structure for instance) - which on my kind of system leads to a real stack of timeshift storage partitions - or potential confusion from timeshift-a on distro-b, timeshift-b on distro-c, and timeshift-c on distro-a for instance. There may be a work-around that I haven’t yet discovered - but the easy reversion capability will do on most of my Arch-based systems for now.

[ringo]

got also a snapshot with symlinks to the cache folder…when i maintain the cache it renew the links lol

[mandog]

used roll back machine for years but only used it once.
As far as timeshift is concerned from my perspective its a waste of time for me.

[Beardedgeek72]

I use it actually primarely to back up my home folder to an external drive. the / backup is actually a bonus.

[freebird54]

For anyone deciding to take a look at the script, it is now available here:

Share your alias AND/OR function

This item is more of a script than a function, but it seems to me that it fits here better than in a wiki entry! Essentially, it automates the Arch “Wayback Machine” or, as I have called it ShiftTime What this ‘Machine’ does essentially, is take your system back to the date that you specify - by reverting, or downgrading all the packages that have been updated after that date. I decided I would try to make the script accessible, so here I will describe setting it up as a button in the We…

Hope it helps someone.

[zoli62]

In connection with the topic, did it arise in me that there is an option during the installation of EOS to reuse the home directory? I saw such an opportunity with MX Linux.

[Beardedgeek72]

Not directory, unless you manually go in before starting the install and deleting everything under Root BUT the home directory instead of formatting.
But home PARTITION? yes. just don’t format it and use the same user name.

[zoli62]

The advantage of this solution is that after a clean installation, the previous settings of the reinstalled applications are retained. Of course, for beginners, this method is a bit tricky. It would be easier to have an option in the installer to reuse the home directory.

[Beardedgeek72]

Which is why, if anyone asks for my advice, to always make /home a separate partition.

[BONK]

You need to edit it and mount it at home using calamares otherwise works as expected.