I have tested a lot of atomic and traditional distributions lately. Tons of desktop environments strictly for fun and branching out. Having a 1 2 3 backup strategy and not just having it in place, but being able to restore your backup in a timely manner to keep continuity is paramount. You can list infinite reasons why.
Why do atomic distros which are supposed to me more stable, superior to some degree immutable environments lack good backup options? You can hack things together and there are somewhat installable tools. Like timeshift or etc etc. But it seems they place a lot more emphasis on rolling back poor updates in the event than total system backups.
By default it you should have true backups then layer in rollbacks. Not the other way around. Am I missing something?
Timeshift is completely unnecessary. Fedora Atomic’s rollbacking is more powerful and avoids certain issues.
You should only be backing up personal files, not OS files. The OS is replaceable, your personal files are not.
I’ve been backing up my OS and my personal files with borg to my NAS.
Saved me a weekend of setup and config editing once before, when my drive failed.
Or do you just remember all the config changes you did and type them out from the top of your head? And all the apps you have installed? It’s over 300 apps and 100 config files for me.
The OS is tiny compared to personal files. It doesn’t make sense not to back it up.
Or do you just remember all the config changes you did and type them out from the top of your head? And all the apps you have installed? It’s over 300 apps and 100 config files for me.
Well, kinda. I have have scripts to set up most of my system after an installation. It’s nice so that I don’t have to remember everything I’ve done. It means I can reinstall my system or install on a new system with relative ease.
Doesn’t need to be anything complex. Just having a list of packages I want installed and that I can copy into my terminal makes things so much faster.
I install or configure something every week.
In addition to doing the config, I’d have to edit a script as well, which seems like more hassle. At this point, why not go for nixOS and have just the latter part of the hassle without having to also edit config files in / ?
Instead, I run the backup command after I change something. When I want to restore, I can mount any of the last 20 backups from the borg repo and either manually revert a file or use rsync to mass overwrite.
I was thinking of using btrfs send, which would probably be even better for the purposes of recovering from disk failure, but borg file based backup takes way less space and works well so far. And I don’t have the extra effort of a declarative os or setup scripts.
Also works offline as long as I am with my NAS unlike a script that installs a list of packages from the repos.
You do not need to back up your OS, only your personal files.
I’ve never tried an immutable OS, but I’d love if the ability to do system backups and redeploy to another computer was just part of any OS.
Especially when Linux encourages you to distro hopp.
Clonezilla is great but it already happened to me that one backup wasn’t deployable on another (really old) computer
That kinda exists with NixOS, but you’d have to backup your personal files separately.
You’re not really backing up the OS with NixOS, but the nix configuration file describes how the OS is built in a reproducible way.
Yes I heard about it but apparently NixOS is quite complex and not accessible to someone like me who considers himself as an eternal Linux newbie.
Yeah. I’ve used NixOS and think the idea is cool, but overall I prefer Fedora Atomic. Unlike NixOS, it’s a complete OS out of the box and is less quirky than NixOS. Though I am a proponent of Flatpak, those who don’t like it will have a very different opinion of Fedora Atomic.
I just wish Fedora Atomic was more declarative and that bootc could work a bit closer to how NixOS’s nix.conf worked. I would love if that there was a a container file could be declared and used built similarly to nix.conf is (avoiding the user manually building the and signing the container file).
Fam, I loathe saying this, but -please- if you desire engagement, then at least put some honest effort into proofreading your writings before posting them. I’m just assuming stuff at this point because I can barely grasp your intent/writing. *sigh*
Why do atomic distros which are supposed to me more stable, superior to some degree immutable environments lack good backup options? You can hack things together and there are somewhat installable tools. Like timeshift or etc etc.
Which distros even come by default -so installed OOTB- with “good backup options”? Which atomic distros is this statement even based on?
But it seems they place a lot more emphasis on rolling back poor updates in the event than total system backups.
Because their atomicity barely goes beyond updates. The ‘atomic’ in “atomic distros” mostly describes how its updates are atomic; i.e. the system either updates successfully or doesn’t update at all. Thus, by design, we have two possible states after an update: a ‘successfully’ updated system or a ‘failed’ update resulting in the same state as the previous. Atomic distros aren’t smart enough to catch all ‘breakage’ occurred by ‘successful’ updates. As such, most of these breakages will only show them after trying to boot into updated system. Deleting/erasing the previous known good state without verifying that the new/upcoming state works well is foolish. Especially on a distro that’s got robust updates otherwise. Hence, the functionality of rollbacks on updates is almost trivially done/applied to atomic distros, as it (almost) follows by design.
So, what I’m interested in is the following:
- Are you familiar with the notion of stateless systems? Is this (perhaps) what you’re (actually) seeking?
By default it you should have true backups then layer in rollbacks. Not the other way around. Am I missing something?
I think my previous paragraph should be enlightening in this regard. If you disagree (or something/otherwise), then please feel free to elaborate why you think so. Btw, what do you even mean with "true backups?
Based on their post history, I strongly suspect the OP has English as a non-primary language. They are doing fine, their posts are perfectly understandable. There’s no value in harassing them about that.
Based on their post history, I strongly suspect the OP has English as a non-primary language.
While I believe your intent and attempt is noble, in OP’s comment history we find their admittance to being American.
Furthermore, I’d argue their history actually suggests that they’re very much capable of writing perfectly sound English. In fact, this isn’t my first interaction with OP. So I know they can do better. But, for whatever reason, they haven’t demonstrably shown the same diligence when writing up this particular post.
They are doing fine, their posts are perfectly understandable.
The bold part is probably directly targeting the “proofreading your writings before posting them”-part of my original comment. And I’ll admit that I should have done a better job at conveying that this doesn’t intend to allude to a structural problem. So, to be clear, it was meant as general advice after being bothered by (only) this post.
Uno Reverse
Outwardly suspecting ESL for native speakers ain’t nice either, but I digress…
There are plenty of Americans who don’t speak English as a primary language, but you might be correct that they are simply not being diligent with their proofreading.
Either way, they’re perfectly understandable IMO, but it’s also valid to be frustrated with someone writing differently. I still don’t think it’s constructive to chastise them for it.
