Backup of a whole Linux system

[Albert Zeyer]

I want to backup my whole Linux system (or rather: the whole file system, excluding only things like /tmp), such that I can recover it later and get back a fully functional Linux system (after installing a boot loader).

Is this doable with Perkeep? Or rather not recommended because of too much overhead for all the thousands of tiny files which a Linux system usually has?

[Simon B.]

For fast full system backup / restore you should pick some other tool. Maybe one that also cares for partitioning, boot loaders etc.

If you want to keep old versions, then you can save the system backup images (full + deltas) with Perkeep. Timestamps are searchable, but also make sure to tag or name the system backup file such that you can find it with a search later.

Maybe you'd be interested in linux systems built for reproducibility: https://medium.com/@alex285/fedora-silverblue-29-vs-endless-os-3-4-fe7d65aa8c9c

[Albert Zeyer]

I don't care about the boot loader. That is just a single call to grub-install (or so), to recover that. And the partitioning might be different on my new PC anyway, or in any case I would want to decide that customly when recovering. So these are no reasons for me.

Are there other reasons not to use Perkeep for a full system backup? E.g. speed? Overhead in size?

I'm interested in the history only for some subset of the files, though. Is it possible to remove the history later on for certain directories (e.g. all in /usr)?

[Simon B.]

Perkeep targets permanent storage, and using it for temporary working files and backups might feel slow.

My setup: I like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rsnapshot then I exclude (best effort) folders that I already have in perkeep or git. Before ditching an old computer, I might .tar.gz or .zip some folders from it and dump into perkeep, as a just-in-case while still not blowing up the perkeep index with old and not really necessary stuff (aka "Maybe I'll index or run in an emulator sometime, but not this year.")

I suggest you try out adding /usr/bin (or similar ~1GB structure) into a temporary perkeep that you don't mind wiping just to get a feeling for the speed with your current machine(s).

[Albert Zeyer]

Yes, this is what I expect, but only being slow would not necessarily rule Perkeep out. I imagine having a single backup solution (Perkeep) might be simpler instead of having two backup solutions (Perkeep + Rsnapshot or whatever). Or actually that is what I want to figure out by my question here.

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