XPost: alt.os.linux.mint   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Sun, 8/18/2024 3:18 PM, Monsieur wrote:   
   > Big Al wrote:   
   >> On 8/18/24 01:09 PM, Dr. Noah Bodie wrote:   
   >>> I'm finding that TS does NOT do 100% restorations of the system files.   
   Recently I did an update that broke the OS (I lost my internet connection, I   
   lost several apps, etc.) so I used TS to restore an earlier working OS.   
   >>>   
   >>> The problem was some of the changes that the update made were not reversed   
   by the restoration.   
   >>>   
   >>> This is the second time that TS has failed to do a 100%-retu   
   n-to-previous-condition,   
   >>> so I'm wondering if there is something more reliable than TS.   
   >>>   
   >>> Something that WILL return the system 100% to the way that it was.   
   >> This isn't for everyone, but I use Acronis backup in Windows.   
   >   
   > Why not create an image with disks? That one is installed by default in Mint   
   and it can definitely handle Linux partitions.   
   >   
      
   Gnome-disks -- Isn't that just an instance of "dd if=/dev/sda" or "dd   
   if=/dev/sda1" ?   
      
   The hamburger menu has the whole disk image interface.   
      
   If you click a partition and use the Gear Wheel, you are offered a partition   
   image interface.   
      
   But the way it is behaving, it looks to me   
   like it might be "dd" instead of "partclone.ext4" or similar.   
      
   Partclone would only back up the inodes with user data, and white space would   
   not   
   be copied. Partclone is what Clonezilla might use.   
      
   I use a Macrium Reflect USB stick ("rescue CD") for both backup and restore.   
   It makes compact copies of FAT32 and NTFS (does not record white space unless   
   you ask it to), but it also makes compact copies of EXT partitions. They're   
   probably not quite as efficient as partclone. If you had 20GB of data on a   
   1TB partition, Reflect makes a 30GB backup out of that, partclone would be   
   closer to 20GB in size. And then your choice of compression utility, can   
   make the thing smaller when you put it on your backup drive. While Macrium   
   has a built-in compressor, it's a lightweight one (gzip 3 or maybe a lighter   
   weight one than that), and I have better compressors for reducing backup size.   
      
   If Gnome-disks did a partition image of a 1TB partition, it would be 1TB in   
   size. This is inefficient, and slow. There are ways to improve the situation   
   ("zerofree"),   
   but those aren't suited to SSD drives. Even dd isn't a clever choice for SSDs,   
   it's better suited to rotating hard drives (where writes don't cost you   
   anything).   
   SSDs have limited write life. dd does large writes, not good for an SSD drive.   
      
   There are other recipes possible using rsync.   
      
   *******   
      
   And this is something that should be a relatively high priority on   
   your to-do list for your Daily Driver OS.   
      
   It helps to have two good-sized spare disks, for testing backup schemes.   
   You need room to work. If you want backups, you can't be cheap about it.   
      
   when I "calibrated" my first backup scheme, I used "dd" to back up the   
   source drive. That was in case the software-under-test, could not manage   
   to finish a restore. "dd" *is* useful. It is useful during calibration.   
   But once a more efficient utility is proven to work, then the "dd" image   
   can be tossed out.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)