Linux Mint Takes Over Development of Backup Tool 'Timeshift'

"Linux Mint is taking over development of Timeshift, a popular open-source backup tool," reports the blog OMG! Ubuntu: Anyone familiar with Mint will be familiar with this utility. Timeshift is, as the distro's own lead Clement Lefebvre says in the latest monthly update, a central plank in the system's backup and update 'strategy'.

Sadly, as happens, the creator of Timeshift is unable to keep working on it owing to other responsibilities. Not keen to see it stagnate, Mint says it 'got in touch' to see how they could help. Long story short: Linux Mint is assuming maintenance of the app henceforth.

And as part of the process Timeshift is becoming an official member of the XApp family (this is Mint's stable of home-grown software it designs and develops to be distro-agnostic for widest possible use).

Best case scenario

[Baconsmoke]

This seems like a best case scenario. A useful tool's developer needs to walk away and a non-profit group is picking up the slack with their approval. Good deal all the way around.

Re:

[echo123]

Not only that, but Timeshift is a remarkable and worthy tool for any admin's tool box. I'm pleased it's not only gaining more support, but also wider exposure, by default.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I'm sure Timeshift is very useful, but I feel like snapshotting is possibly not the best tool for disaster recovery. It's certainly convenient, but I think a system that can simply re-install the OS and applications, and then restore all user settings and data, would be even better.

It's not trivial, especially if you have applications that were not installed via package manager, or your package repos don't keep old versions of packages. It would make moving between machines easier, and make upgrades easier.

Re:

[slazzy]

Agreed. I didn't even know about this tool but I'll be giving it a try now. One of the things keeping me tied to the Apple ecosystem is the great backup software included.

great!

[klipclop]

I use Linux mint on my desktop for more than 10yrs now and it's great. I had to use time shift a few times as well and it worked flawlessly.

Huzzah for Free Software

[drinkypoo]

Looking at the license, I see that Timeshift is licensed under the GPLv3, so while thankfully the creator was able to peacefully hand off control of the software in this case, even if it were not the case they could have forked it, and taken it up. Good show all around.

OS versioning tool

[bill_mcgonigle]

```
Timeshift is similar to applications like rsnapshot, BackInTime and TimeVault but with different goals. It is designed to protect only system files and settings. User files such as documents, pictures and music are excluded. This ensures that your files remains unchanged when you restore your system to an earlier date. If you need a tool to back up your documents and files please take a look at the excellent BackInTime application which is more configurable and provides options for saving user files.
```

Re:

[Zobeid]

Okay, please explain this to me. . . I've been trying to figure it out for A While. Why do I need or want to backup my system files? At all??

If anything goes wrong with the OS (unlikely, in my experience) then I can just re-install the system, can't I? Re-installing my OS and applications could be a nuisance, it could be time-consuming, but I can always do it. And, again, it's not something I expect to do often.

What I do care about is backing up my home directory and my auxiliary drive. Those have MY

Backintime?

[davecb]

I happen to use backintime, https://github.com/bit-team/ba... [github.com], which at one time also suffered from an overloaded maintainer, an also used rsync for (non-snapshot) backups.

I wonder if the authors know about each other?

Re:

[Zobeid]

I used Back In Time for several years and loved it, but it became broken with a recent Python update, and nobody seems to be in a position to fix it. There's no active support, last I checked. I hope somebody will pick up the ball and sort it out.

Timetrap / Diversion

[BrendaEM]

It's operating-system focusing people on one application that not everyone will use. I would rather their people work on the user interface / Cinnamon.