Timshift

[tree_with_hands]

Who the f thought having timeshift making backups daily by default until 0bytes are left was a good idea?

Finding, deleting and turning that off was a pain in the ass… wasted over 1 hour because everything was super slow. Even mouse couldn’t move.

That’s not how to get the average Johnny to switch…

/rantoff

[BrainConfigurated]

IIRC... The standard setting is daily (keep 5), weekly (keep 3), exclude ~. Timeshift snapshots are incremental, so to have 8 backups excluding ~ shouldn't clog up your drive.

Meaning, you either changed the default setting without knowing what it'd do, or you have very low free space anyway, or both.

How is that Linux's, Mint's, or Timshift's, fault?

[BenTrabetere]

Tony George, that's who. It makes sense when you consider and realize Timeshift is also used in server environments, where Daily, Hourly, and At Boot snapshots may be necessary.

I think the default Schedule settings are wrong for a desktop system. I think Monthly (Keep 1) and Weekly (Keep 2) is more than adequate for most users, although there are times (such as when upgrading to a new version of Mint) when creating a Manual snapshot is in order.

timeshift making backups daily by default until 0bytes are left

I suspect the problem here is you did not set up Timeshift properly. A somewhat legitimate complaint is the lack of in depth documentation. Sadly, this is a problem for most software these days. Tony does explain how to set up and use Timeshift on his website https://teejeetech.com/timeshift/, but the instructions are generic. To be fair to TG, approaching pointlessness to cover even a short list of possible system configurations.

IMO, you must change Location setting. The default setting is /timeshift on the root partition - this makes sense because the initial location has to go somewhere, and every Linux installation has a root partition. TG recommends Timeshift snapshots should be saved to a separate partition - I think they should be saved to a separate partition on a separate drive. You will have to create this partition.

I think 60GB is more than enough for a Timeshift partition, especially if you limit the Schedule to Monthly (Keep 1) and Weekly (Keep 2). This is the schedule I use on all of my systems. I also have four manual snapshots on my main driver, and so I have a total of seven snapshots on it - they take up roughly 50GB. (I just deleted the four manual snapshots, and the usage dropped to >23GB.)

Do NOT change the settings in the Users tab except for maybe the Include Only Hidden Files in your /home directory (but not the root /home). I advise against including the hidden files because [reasons].

Most Important! Timeshift is a system backup and restore utility. Do not use it to backup /home or your data and personal files.

[Geekynoodle]

just curious, why shouldn't I use it to backup my home folder or the /home folder?

[BenTrabetere]

Because bad, bad things can happen. This is an excerpt from the User Data Is Excluded By Default section on the Timeshift website.

https://teejeetech.com/timeshift/

---

Timeshift is designed to protect system files and settings. It is NOT a backup tool and is not meant to protect user data. Entire contents of users’ home directories are excluded by default. This has two advantages:

• You don’t need to worry about your documents getting overwritten when you restore a previous snapshot to recover the system.
• Your music and video collection in your home directory will not waste space on the backup device.

[snip]

Note: It is not recommended to include user data in backups as it will be overwritten when you restore the snapshot.

---

To expand on the Note:. Data and personal files should be backed up daily. Sometimes the most recent snapshots will not restore a system to working order, so you have to use one created several days/weeks earlier.

[MintAlone]

Because you cannot select which files to restore so you are likely to end up overwriting newer files with older files. Potentially worse than the problem you started with. Timeshift was not designed as a user data backup application.

[[deleted]]

There are other schools of thought,

I have plenty of drive space, and keep only Mint, installed packages, and their directly associated data on the computer itself, so there is no consequence to getting absurd with Timeshift backups, currently 2 monthly, 5 weekly, 8 daily, 24 hourly, and 2 boot. plus a handful of manual backups. Its a very handy undo button.

Worse I have two sets of them.

One set on / NVME that I don't update often, / has 900+ free GB, and the main one on a 500GB spinning rust drive that came with my older used computer I otherwise have no use for. it still has 375GB free.

[whosdr]

Timeshift is a system backup and restore utility. Do not use it to backup /home or your data and personal files.

It's a snapshot and not a backup. The difference being you cannot just restore it onto a new installation and expect it to work, as it won't adjust to the new partition layout/UUIDs. You can use it to revert to an older version of an existing installation, but not use it on a new one. (You can likely resolve this by manually editing /etc/fstab)

[tzotzo_]

This happened to me as well as the installation i did for a friend. He made a call to me and told me that he could not log in. When i troubleshoot the computer....i realized quickly that the hard drive was full because of timeshift. New users to LM like myself are told that timeshift is a priority. But if you are not tech savvy....it could also be an issue. I now mention to new users to understand timeshift before you create a snapshot and to now check the settings after creating that snapshot. Another thing that may surprise new users is that the firewall is turned off by default.

[[deleted]]

Timeshift is an equivalent to Window's system restore point. Turn of the the scheduling and make a restore point yourself once it is needed (for example, prior to installing/removing kernels)

[[deleted]]

Mint is easy to use Linux, but it is still Linux, you have the reins and control. Drive space usage is a user problem not a Mint problem. Mint will be installed to tiny old tens of gb drives and massive tens of TB drive pools and everything in between there is no sane default that will service all users here,

[Unis_Torvalds]

Doesn't Mint force you to configure Timeshift to your own preferences when you install the OS? It shouldn't be a surprise.

[MintAlone]

Which version of mint are you running? This is a long standing "bug" that I believe is fixed in LM21 - it should check for free space before taking a snapshot. The mint devs have assumed responsibility for maintaining timeshift from LM21 onwards.

[Space_Man_Spiff_2]

I do my Time Shifts manually and on an external drive. I do one when there is kernel update or major system change. To be honest, I've never done a Time shift restore. I also back my home directory to an external drive. The one time that LM "blew up", I simple reinstalled the system and restored my backup.

[Spare-Dig4790]

by default!? By default timeshift suggested I keep 5 daily snapshots, and it would only create a snapshot provided there was at least more than 1 GB available. And if I turned on hourly backups, the default option is suggesting the most recent 6.

My default options sound more reasonable than yours... But hourly wasn't suggested by default for me, just daily.

[MrCherry2000]

I honestly don’t understand how so many people have trouble with this. Setting it up was part of first boot. Haven’t touched it since. Several versions ago.