I finally feel comfortable with making my first Zorin back-up in many months but I have just a few questions before I take the leap ....
I wan't to keep my Personal Folders separate from my Timeshift Download Folder ..... my folders are listed below .... are there any other Personal Folders that should be included or is this it ????? .... I will be including my Hidden Folders in the Timeshift Downloads ..... to many things I need should something go wrong .....
Downloads
Music
Pictures
Videos
They total 170.9 GB's while my other content is just 184.81 GB's .... so the 4 Folders above will go to a different disk and just be copied to it when needed .... I have a 1 TB external HD that I have split into 2 partitions .... one for Misc. and the other for Timeshift Back-ups ....
I do have some games but those to will be transfer to a totally different 1 TB drive along with the 4 fore mentioned folders .... by leaving my Hidden Folder on my Timeshift back-up folder all I have to do to play my games again ..... will be to just transfer the one game back to Zorn after the Timeshift Back-up folder has been reinstalled after a melt down ....
I have a very good video showing how to use Timeshift but some of the things mentioned above were missing ..... I feel I have repeated myself quite a bit above but I wanted to make it clear on what I wanted to do .... hope I wasn't to confusing ....
No other personal folders hold critical system information. So you can exclude or keep any personal folders you want.
As far as hidden files go - I cannot think of any off-hand that really should be excluded.
The only real reason to exclude any Home Files or Folders is if you wish to save space.
If you know your ~/Downloads directory is prone to get cluttered and filled with redundant or unnecessary files and packages for example.
I cannot think of any corruption that can occur in the Home Files that would necessitate Timeshift or Reinstallation.
These are most often easily corrected by addressing the file in question such as .XAuthority, .profile, .config...
Thank you for the correction I was referring to Timeshift ..... must be a memory block as I referred to Timeshift as Timeshare once before in a post I made and someone else corrected me ..... DUH .... I'm ate up with it today ....
As far as personal folders go I was told and read that Timeshift would not copy any personal folders unless you specific requested it to do so and as I don't want to loose any content I was trying to single out the personal folders I thought would not be included back-up because they are personal folders .....
I guess it all boils down to just what is considered a personal folder ..... as I have no idea .....
The default settings of Timeshift exclude the home folder, which includes all personal folders/files such as documents, music and videos.
The reason is quite logical. Suppose you create/modify a document. You then update or install something that causes a problem. If you reverted a Timeshift backup including the home folder, your document would be gone/reverted to an earlier state.
If i understand correctly, this is what you are worried about, yes? If so the default settings of Timeshift (excluding the home directory) should work for you.
If I do a test run using Timeshift will I be able to see what folders Timeshift saves so I can determine which other folders I need to save so I don't loose all my hard earned work like Cinnamon DE and it's customization's .....
I decided to go with Deja Dup as it allows me to physically view and select or deselect the folders I want to use ..... much easier for a simple person like me ..... anyway I took a 1 TB external drive and turned it to 2 partitions ....
All looked good to me but when I clicked Back Up I got the following two photos .... I have been over and over this but don't see why it wouldn't work .... so what did I do wrong .....
As I had used this external HD many times before I just ignored it .... after a few tries the message didn't repeat itself any more .... now when I plug it in it just goes right to the Passport main menu but the Deja Dup partition doesn't show up ...... it does how ever show up i the side menu if I look in my Home folder ..... when clicking on Deja Dup in the left menu it is empty ....
That is a good backup tool too. It is more general purpose and i suppose a more traditional backup solution. It’s best to keep those backups on a separate drive.
Timeshift is more intended to rescue your installation if an update or “software experiment” causes problems. By default it keeps several daily backups in the background. By default they are stored on the same disc as the operating system. Generally, for its intended purpose that’s part.
Both can also be used in combination. Timeshift to keep your system running. Deja dup to keep your files safe.
Yes it seems a whole lot easier for me to use ..... I was using Rescuezilla before and loved it but it takes a copy of the whole drive each and every time you use it which takes up a lot of HD space ..... with Deja Dup as I understand it it only copies the files that you changed or added since the last save .....
I just wish I could get it to work as I showed in my photos above I just get "Backup Failed" .....
I would also like to move all the posts above dealing with Deja Dup moved to it's own thread so as not to confuse anyone and also for better searching using the Tutorial & Guide feature ..... I just don't know how to do it ....
