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Asked: 2021-01-01 07:30:19 +0800 CST

How can I make timeshift take a backup of the whole system?

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How can I make timeshift take a backup of the whole system? I am unable to find any tutorials to do this! I am using the default config.

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1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can't as it is not designed to do that.

    Timeshift is similar to applications like rsnapshot, BackInTime and TimeVault but with different goals. It is designed to protect only system files and settings. User files such as documents, pictures and music are excluded. This ensures that your files remains unchanged when you restore your system to an earlier date. If you need a tool to backup your documents and files please take a look at the excellent BackInTime application which is more configurable and provides options for saving user files.

    • BackInTime is suggested

    From the link:

    Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux, inspired by "flyback project".

    It provides a command line client 'backintime' and a Qt5 GUI 'backintime-qt' both written in Python3.

    You only need to specify 3 things:

    • where to save snapshots
    • what folders to backup
    • backup frequency (manual, every hour, every day, every month)
    • The second thing noted seems to indicate a full backup can be created by telling it to backup /.
    • Generic tools like Clonezilla or a manually custom made command will work too.

    ===

    A full system backup should be done from unmounted partitions and the live session is the easiest tool to do that from. That is also the reason most people do not make full system backups and only backup personal files: if the system itself is busted and there is no way to fix it, restoring a backup is probably easiest from a live session too. But a re-install is going to be even easier: I myself use an SSD for my system and a HDD for my personal files. A re-install is done within 20 minutes (and that includes post-install extra installation of software I use that is not default).

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