Today i had to use Timeshift to recover my OS for the first time in maybe 5 years of using it. It probably helped that i'm using btrfs so Timeshift just put the previous snapshot in place and it worked after reboot. Pretty incredible.
btw, i'm on Nobara, not Zorin. I'm setting up Zorin for my parents.
Anyway - it made me look at it for Zorin. I am, and not surprised that Timeshift is absent.
Surprised because it's a superb program that has saved a lot of bacon from the BBQ over the years.
Not surprised because it's UI is pretty awful. I found it quite confusing to set up and use initially. Took me a while to figure it out.
Long before experimenting with Zorin, i fantasised that someone would take over the project and actually make it a lovely, modern-feeling user experience.
I would love Zorin to do that
As there isn't a recovery tool inbuilt, i would freak out if Zorin 18 included a sexy Timeshift.
p.s. I believe Linux Mint has taken over maintenance of Timeshift. They'll keep it functioning well, but they won't make it sexy
They are not quite the same thing, DejaDup essentially copies files from one place to another, presumably an external drive or something similar. Then, to restore the files you would copy them back. It's a bit more involved since it uses its own internal binary format but that's the gist of it. It's better suited for personal files that change very often.
Timeshift works by taking incremental snapshots of the filesystem in order to reconstruct it step by step. The idea is that if you install something and it doesn't work, or it breaks something else, you can rollback to a previous snapshot. Since snapshots are incremental, it would be a mistake to use it for personal files that change very often, that would leave you with massive files that a lot of space and are slow to work with later on.
So, Timeshift and DejaDup actually complement each other nicely.
I saw in another post you said:
Timeshift works much better when using BTRFS, as opposed to fallback to rsync. That explains why it's much faster. Otherwise, I wouldn't take snapshots that often either.
I use both Timeshift (interestingly, I found it really easy to set up!), and Déjà Dup, which backs up your whole system to Google Drive. Google haters won't like that but I really don't care, I use 3 different Google accounts to do many different things, including a Spam account. This comes with free Google Drive storage... it works for me!
There is also Back in Time @d-man , which might be more your thing?? A sexy-looking Timeshift would be nice but I think the Zorin devs have more important things to fix before Z 18 is ready for release.
When you say this, you mean your entire root partition as well? I know Google Drive is free but it'd be much more efficient to only backup your personal files which are the ones you cannot replace with a fresh install. Timeshift can handle the system files.
I think Mr. Stallman would have something to say about that. How do you know that your data is not being scraped by Google? It may say it doesn't but how do you know for sure? I like to be in control of my data and use external drives for the purpose. I appreciate that I have this 'luxury' but it is one I would not be without.
Personally, the best method is to install Zorin, add all the applications that you are likely to need (not want), remove applications that you don't need or are ever likely to use, then do a full system backup image using Rescuezilla. Then regularly create backups of your critical data (your /home folder, including hidden files) by simply opening your /home folder, press Ctrl+ H to show your hidden files, then press Ctrl+ A to select everything, then Ctrl+ C to copy to clipboard, then Ctrl+ V to paste into a newly created folder on your external storage device. You should never use Timeshift to backup your /home folder, as I discovered myself recently on another distribution. I had been working on a document. Had to use Timeshift to restore, and all the additional work I had been doing on that document had gone because Timeshift takes you back to the last snapshot it took of the system.
I do intend to get external storage when I can, at the moment all I can do is feed myself and the cats, and pay the bills. I'm not doing anything interesting for Google to want, and they have way too many users to bother with me at the moment. Things will change, ASAP.
The first thing I did when I installed Zorin - both times, was go through everything installed, check it out and delete what I won't use.
I've got a couple of old laptops, one with a broken screen, the other with a broken graphics card. I'm hoping to be able to buy a couple of cases / caddies, so I can use the hard drives for external storage, plus retrieve some old photos and stuff. It is something I need to look into because I don't know what size caddies I need - I think they're both different sizes as one is much older than the other. ...when I have the spare cash.
@swarfendor437 , I will be sure to check out Rescuzilla, thanks for the info and recommendation.
Both laptops died years ago, both hard drives were working. I dont even remember what was on them! The last one could have been running Windows 7... I really don't remember
FWIW, on different systems, i use different software. It's really just because legacy. I set something up ages ago and haven't changed.
Generally speaking though, i use Duplicacy for offsite backups of user-data. And Timeshift for os backups. Sometimes i also use a bash script that does more or less the same thing as Timeshift, but recovery is not such a breeze. But access to individual files is convenient.
Actually, on my previous system, rsync took ~1-2 minutes (unless i had a big system update). btrfs, i really don't know - it seems invisibly fast. Seconds? I don't have it back up user data.
I've had issues with Rescuezilla freezing during very large backups. I like it and concur with the recommendation, but if you run into that trouble when you use it, another alternative would be Redo Rescue, which is what I switched to after having trouble with Rescuezilla.
