this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Timeshift for system files, Backintime for user data.
Neither of those are backup tools. They're snapshotting tools.
Snapshots are incremental backups.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Synchronization_and_backup_programs#Incremental_backups
They are often incremental but they're still not a backup.
They are local restore points. That's better than nothing at all as a local copy can protect against a very limited kind of data hazard and quite handy indeed but not a backup. A backup is always an independent copy.
If your entire machine was to blow up, a backup must be able to retain your data. A copy on the same disks will not.
Now I get your point, sorry. You can use both Timeshift and BackInTime as snapshot tools, but also configure them to create snapshots on a different drive, making it an actual backup.
I for example use Timeshift in Rsync mode for that reason even though I'm also using Btrfs, which Timeshift supports, but only for non-backup snapshots.
Sorry for the confusion, I guess when suggesting both those tools one always has to specify that you need to save snapshots on a secondary drive for it to be a backup.
I tried Backintime and Timeshift recently.
In Backintime I added the dirs I wanted to backup and where to make the backups, pressed "run" and it said there's nothing to do. Uninstalled. Later on I found out it had added stuff to my crontab even though I never asked it for a recurring schedule.
Timeshift started by asking for the root password right off the bat. Uninstalled. Like, I know it will want root access eventually but at least buy me dinner first. How do I know what a program I've never used before wants to do to my system?