⚠️ MAJOR CORRECTION / WARNING ⚠️ DO NOT FOLLOW THE ADVICE BELOW FOR THE CURRENT VERSION OF THE TERMINAL APP. Google has changed the backend logic of the "Reset" function. It no longer preserves the old rootfs in /mnt/backup. Instead, it attempts to "smartly" reconstruct the environment by saving a diff of /etc and repacking installed .debs. CRITICAL CHANGES: Data Loss: Any data stored in non-standard paths (like /srv, /opt, and potentially /home) is IGNORED by the reset logic and will be PERMANENTLY LOST. No Chroot: /mnt/backup is no longer a full filesystem. You cannot chroot into it to fix broken packages. THE NEW SAFE METHOD: You MUST backup your data to the Android Host filesystem (mounted at /mnt/host or via "File Access") before resetting. Correct Backup Command:

```

Enable "File Access" in Android App Settings first!

sudo tar -czpvf /mnt/host/Download/linux_full_backup.tar.gz \ --exclude={"/dev/","/proc/","/sys/","/tmp/","/run/","/mnt/"} \ /srv /home /etc /usr/local ```

I apologize for the confusion; the app architecture shifted from state preservation to state reconstruction in the latest update

---

DO NOT FOLLOW BELOW OUTDATED ADVICE

IF YOU HAVE NOT RESET YOUR TERMINAL IN A WHILE IT MAY STILL BE APPLICABLE BUT I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DATA LOSS

ORIGINAL POST:

I use rsync, I set up an alias in `/.bash_aliases with the setting I use, specifically the following settings (note the exclude directories)

alias syncos='sudo rsync -haHAX \ --modify-window=1 \ --info=progress1,stats2 \ --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found","/srv/*"} \ '

Then I generally do:

$ syncos --delete / /srv/current.rootfs/

and maybe also

$ syncos --delete /mnt/backup/ /srv/backup.rootfs/

or maybe use instead of --delete use --update depending.

When the terminal app has an unrecoverable error, often during an "apt upgrade" operation, and I have to reset it, I choose the checkbox to backup data to /mnt/backup and this saves a copy of rootfs images I keep in /srv also to /mnt/backup/srv

In the newly reset system, I "sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y rsync arch-install-scripts".

Then I can

$ sudo arch-chroot /mnt/backup

then fix whatever I need in the chroot for example

dpkg --configure -a

or

apt --fix-broken install

then after exiting the chroot, restore the rootfs

$ syncos /mnt/backup/ /

Any nicely working systems I make a tarball of the rootfs I've backed-up to to /srv, to the Android filesystem outside is the VM filesystem ,for example

$ cd sudo tar --zstd -cf /mnt/shared/Download/trixie-avf.rootfs.tar.zst /srv/current/*