I am just seeing this in 2022 and the application has changed since but the logic is still the same. Your EXCELLENT tutorial still works in 2022. Thank you.
Great video! It gave me an appreciation for just what I wanted in a backup program for my Linux Mint environment. To sweeten the deal, Deja Dup/Backups was in my repository, so all I had to do was engage my software manager. However, there was one critical addition that needed to be made to 1) get the Flatpack version of this application (the other version is not fully functional in my opinion) and 2) to run your backups automatically (which I wanted). On my system, the application to install is called Flatseal. To enable Backups to run automatically, toggle ‘Background’ in the ‘Portals’ section of Flatseal and you’re good to go. Using timeshift to keep your system files backed up and Deja Dup for your personal environment in my opinion is an unbeatable combo. Thanks again for the great video. Peace.
I use this quite extensively. Deja dup automatically takes daily snapshots which saves to a special syncthing folder than syncs to my nas which uses deja dup to sync my laptop, desktop, and phone backups offsite to Google drive :) I do it like this because Samba just isn't reliable over wifi with the large data pools I manage and syncthing being bittorrent based means my data transfers are checksummed and reliable
Thanks for the awesome demonstration. I just have 1 question, you said if I want I can create a copy of the etc folder in home, so my doubt is if in case I need full complete back up , then what folders to add in home? Also, please make a video on timeshift, I have heard that it is great. Thanks anyway for the video
Hey thanks for the video! I am also running Pop!_OS 20.04, so your recent video series has been very useful. I have one question regarding the local cache folder that you excluded from the back up: how important is the ~/.cache folder for the system? Mine has grown to 2.5 G, and I was wondering if it is okay to delete it. I know that the commands like "apt autoclean", "apt clean" and "apt autoremove" are used to clean the system's cache, but I have not been able to find a command that deals with the ~/.cache folder. Do you happen to know a way to keep the ~/.cache folder from growing too large?
Good question! You actually just prompted me to do a video on this topic, which I'm uploading now and should be up in the next day or so. The short answer is that you _should_ be okay to delete it, but it may mess up programs that aren't using the cache directory correctly. A better bet might be to look at what is inside it using du, and clean that up on a case-by-case basis. The majority of those 2.5 gigs are probably web browser caches, so clearing those can have a big effect too.
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️ I have a question please answer Why to use this type of "deja dup" tool to backup your direct if you can just copy past your important direct somewhere else Whyyy🤔🤔
Thank you, I followed your process on my Pop OS and Windows 10 dual boot, I backed up my files on Windows 10 and reset it to the original. When I tried to restore my backed up files the Deja Dup found the files and failed to restore my files throwing an error ”No backup to restore” did the manual process using "tar xf " and it created 2 folders "multivolume_snapshot and snapshot folders". I restored my files but I don’t know how to put them in the original structure because some of my files are scattered from "multivolume_snapshot and snapshot folders". Any ideas or solutions on this problem?
fter backing up to an external hard drive using deja dup under ubuntu 16.04 for a long time, and installing ubuntu 20.04, on attempting to do a total restore there is an error message, "no backup to restore". What now ? 20.04 started deja dup-ing without orders, storing somewhere else. Machine-name folder is empty, but Ubuntu workfiles folder seems to hold all the historical stuff, 6408 weekly items from 2014 to March 2021. I hope this is enough to retrieve some or all of my history. But how ?
Thanks for the info, just found your channel since I'm new to Pop!_OS and you have been very helpful. I have one question, what if I want to transfer Pop!_OS from an old internal HDD to a internal SSD, how would you do so? I'm dualbooting, Windows on a Nvme SSD and Pop! on an old hard drive and want to replace it with a SSD. Thanks for uploading!
I'm sure that there is a way that you could copy the files over, but your best best is probably to install Pop fresh on the new drive. You could actually use Deja Dup to help with that, if you wanted. Make a full backup of your home directory (which is where all your files probably are anyway), install Pop fresh on the drive, and then use Deja Dup to do a restore from backup into your new home directory. That ought to bring all your files over. You may need to make a backup of /etc as well, depending on whether you have configured much on your system there. But most general desktop configurations are stored in your home directory these days, in ~/.config.
Using the default settings of just your home folder, that would really only include your documents, media files and so on, right? Not any programs and system files? I'm coming from the Mac where I've used Carbon Copy Cloner for a long time. A nice graphical app for making a full bootable system clone, which it sounds like this is not. I understand I could boot into a tool like Clonezilla to make a disk clone, but that's a pretty cumbersome process (and I think not capable of incremental backups). Assuming I use this tool for my home folder, what's the rest of the process to get my system back to how it was with a new hard drive? Restore home folder, then download all my programs again, then set up any settings again? Any suggestions for a Carbon Copy Cloner alternative? I'd like to be able to do full system backup and restore easily.
You're correct, this isn't really for doing full disk clones. For most of your standard, non-admin stuff, settings for the programs are stored in your home directory (~/.config, usually). So a full backup of that directory should preserve many, if not all, of your configurations for your programs. As for the programs themselves, one option that might be a little easier than backing up would be to use % apt list --installed to get a list of all of your installed packages (assuming you're using a distro that uses apt), and then back that up as well. You can then write a script that reinstalls all of your programs onto a new system, based on the contents of that file in your backup. It could be a fun little project to get into scripting, if that's something you're interested in. If not, I'm sure someone, somewhere, has a prepackaged script posted that does the job.
I am just seeing this in 2022 and the application has changed since but the logic is still the same. Your EXCELLENT tutorial still works in 2022.
Thank you.
This is the best Deja Dup tutorial out there. Simple and to the point. KUDOS!
Great video! It gave me an appreciation for just what I wanted in a backup program for my Linux Mint environment. To sweeten the deal, Deja Dup/Backups was in my repository, so all I had to do was engage my software manager. However, there was one critical addition that needed to be made to 1) get the Flatpack version of this application (the other version is not fully functional in my opinion) and 2) to run your backups automatically (which I wanted). On my system, the application to install is called Flatseal. To enable Backups to run automatically, toggle ‘Background’ in the ‘Portals’ section of Flatseal and you’re good to go.
Using timeshift to keep your system files backed up and Deja Dup for your personal environment in my opinion is an unbeatable combo. Thanks again for the great video. Peace.
Very useful and easy to follow video. Many thanks!
I use this quite extensively.
Deja dup automatically takes daily snapshots which saves to a special syncthing folder than syncs to my nas which uses deja dup to sync my laptop, desktop, and phone backups offsite to Google drive :)
I do it like this because Samba just isn't reliable over wifi with the large data pools I manage and syncthing being bittorrent based means my data transfers are checksummed and reliable
Thanks for the awesome demonstration. I just have 1 question, you said if I want I can create a copy of the etc folder in home, so my doubt is if in case I need full complete back up , then what folders to add in home? Also, please make a video on timeshift, I have heard that it is great. Thanks anyway for the video
Will this also save my custom settings and shortcuts and stuff, or only files?
Hey thanks for the video! I am also running Pop!_OS 20.04, so your recent video series has been very useful. I have one question regarding the local cache folder that you excluded from the back up: how important is the ~/.cache folder for the system? Mine has grown to 2.5 G, and I was wondering if it is okay to delete it. I know that the commands like "apt autoclean", "apt clean" and "apt autoremove" are used to clean the system's cache, but I have not been able to find a command that deals with the ~/.cache folder. Do you happen to know a way to keep the ~/.cache folder from growing too large?
Good question! You actually just prompted me to do a video on this topic, which I'm uploading now and should be up in the next day or so. The short answer is that you _should_ be okay to delete it, but it may mess up programs that aren't using the cache directory correctly. A better bet might be to look at what is inside it using du, and clean that up on a case-by-case basis. The majority of those 2.5 gigs are probably web browser caches, so clearing those can have a big effect too.
@@DouglasRumbaugh that's awesome! I will make sure to check out the video, thanks for the info.
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
I have a question please answer
Why to use this type of "deja dup" tool to backup your direct if you can just copy past your important direct somewhere else
Whyyy🤔🤔
Thank you, I followed your process on my Pop OS and Windows 10 dual boot, I backed up my files on Windows 10 and reset it to the original. When I tried to restore my backed up files the Deja Dup found the files and failed to restore my files throwing an error ”No backup to restore” did the manual process using "tar xf " and it created 2 folders "multivolume_snapshot and snapshot folders". I restored my files but I don’t know how to put them in the original structure because some of my files are scattered from "multivolume_snapshot and snapshot folders". Any ideas or solutions on this problem?
Perfect, what I have been looking for
Can I extract individual files from Deja a Dup?
Yes
fter backing up to an external hard drive using deja dup under ubuntu 16.04 for a long time, and installing ubuntu 20.04, on attempting to do a total restore there is an error message, "no backup to restore". What now ? 20.04 started deja dup-ing without orders, storing somewhere else. Machine-name folder is empty, but Ubuntu workfiles folder seems to hold all the historical stuff, 6408 weekly items from 2014 to March 2021. I hope this is enough to retrieve some or all of my history. But how ?
Did u get it
Thanks for the info, just found your channel since I'm new to Pop!_OS and you have been very helpful. I have one question, what if I want to transfer Pop!_OS from an old internal HDD to a internal SSD, how would you do so? I'm dualbooting, Windows on a Nvme SSD and Pop! on an old hard drive and want to replace it with a SSD. Thanks for uploading!
I'm sure that there is a way that you could copy the files over, but your best best is probably to install Pop fresh on the new drive. You could actually use Deja Dup to help with that, if you wanted. Make a full backup of your home directory (which is where all your files probably are anyway), install Pop fresh on the drive, and then use Deja Dup to do a restore from backup into your new home directory. That ought to bring all your files over.
You may need to make a backup of /etc as well, depending on whether you have configured much on your system there. But most general desktop configurations are stored in your home directory these days, in ~/.config.
@@DouglasRumbaugh Thank you a lot! Keep doing what you do, love the stuff :)
Clonezilla
Using the default settings of just your home folder, that would really only include your documents, media files and so on, right? Not any programs and system files? I'm coming from the Mac where I've used Carbon Copy Cloner for a long time. A nice graphical app for making a full bootable system clone, which it sounds like this is not. I understand I could boot into a tool like Clonezilla to make a disk clone, but that's a pretty cumbersome process (and I think not capable of incremental backups). Assuming I use this tool for my home folder, what's the rest of the process to get my system back to how it was with a new hard drive? Restore home folder, then download all my programs again, then set up any settings again? Any suggestions for a Carbon Copy Cloner alternative? I'd like to be able to do full system backup and restore easily.
You're correct, this isn't really for doing full disk clones.
For most of your standard, non-admin stuff, settings for the programs are stored in your home directory (~/.config, usually). So a full backup of that directory should preserve many, if not all, of your configurations for your programs.
As for the programs themselves, one option that might be a little easier than backing up would be to use
% apt list --installed
to get a list of all of your installed packages (assuming you're using a distro that uses apt), and then back that up as well. You can then write a script that reinstalls all of your programs onto a new system, based on the contents of that file in your backup. It could be a fun little project to get into scripting, if that's something you're interested in. If not, I'm sure someone, somewhere, has a prepackaged script posted that does the job.