Hello gentlefolk. I've spent a lot of time researching Timeshift in an attempt to resolve some questions I have about whether or not it's able to be configured for a backup / restore scheme I feel a need for. Unfortunately, the more I read, the more obscure the answer becomes.
Please bear with me while I describe my setup and frame my questions.
I'm running a home network with two desktop and one laptop computers. All are running Linux Mint 22. All three have a boot, root, swap, and home partition. Except for the boot partition, they are formatted ext4.
The "user files", ie Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc, are the same on all three boxes, So I have no real need to use a backup program for them. If one computer gets bricked, I still have everything on the other two.
Each computer has a Timeshift snapshot, on a USB stick, of Root only.
I use Brave as my browser, Nord as my VPN, VirtualBox installed from the Oracle website, no flatpaks, and two appimage programs. Gimp 2-10-36 and Avidemux. Homebank has been installed from software manager.
I have however, Like most folks, made qiute a few settings changes and tweaks to the system. Custom date/time display. Adding stepper arrows to the scrollbars. Some others I can't recall at present.
Ok, on to my questions about Timeshift....
1. Is there a way to configure it to backup all these settings and tweaks without trying to snapshot the entire Home partition?
2. If a drive dies and I replace it, then do a clean install of Mint 22, will Timeshift restore the snapshot to the fresh install, to include the settings and tweaks?
For me, a fresh install isn't the problem, it's the hours and days needed to get my systems back to where I want them that gives me nightmares. When I went from 21.3 to 22, I did not reformat the home partition, so all my settings stayed in place, but that might not work for the next major update.
I tried Foxclone once, it backed up the system, but refused to restore the backup to a fresh SSD for some reason. ( same size and make drive ). Needless to say, I don't trust it now.
Please bear with me while I describe my setup and frame my questions.
I'm running a home network with two desktop and one laptop computers. All are running Linux Mint 22. All three have a boot, root, swap, and home partition. Except for the boot partition, they are formatted ext4.
The "user files", ie Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc, are the same on all three boxes, So I have no real need to use a backup program for them. If one computer gets bricked, I still have everything on the other two.
Each computer has a Timeshift snapshot, on a USB stick, of Root only.
I use Brave as my browser, Nord as my VPN, VirtualBox installed from the Oracle website, no flatpaks, and two appimage programs. Gimp 2-10-36 and Avidemux. Homebank has been installed from software manager.
I have however, Like most folks, made qiute a few settings changes and tweaks to the system. Custom date/time display. Adding stepper arrows to the scrollbars. Some others I can't recall at present.
Ok, on to my questions about Timeshift....
1. Is there a way to configure it to backup all these settings and tweaks without trying to snapshot the entire Home partition?
2. If a drive dies and I replace it, then do a clean install of Mint 22, will Timeshift restore the snapshot to the fresh install, to include the settings and tweaks?
For me, a fresh install isn't the problem, it's the hours and days needed to get my systems back to where I want them that gives me nightmares. When I went from 21.3 to 22, I did not reformat the home partition, so all my settings stayed in place, but that might not work for the next major update.
I tried Foxclone once, it backed up the system, but refused to restore the backup to a fresh SSD for some reason. ( same size and make drive ). Needless to say, I don't trust it now.
