@ernie :
Hi Ernie, 
So sorry to hear about that.
Do get better soon. My thoughts are with you. 
IĀ“m glad youĀ“re on the path to recovery.
Many greetings from Rosika 
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Thank you for your thoughts, but CHF is an ongoing thing. Once youāre diagnosed with it, itās something you must deal with, perhaps for life, at least at my age (mid 70s) thatās likely, so I eat a low, or as low as possible, salt diet, I have exercises assigned by physical therapists who cared for me prior to discharge to come home, and I try to keep my mind active, this last, to avoid depression. So far everythingās working as well as can be expected.
When I entered the hospital, I weighed in at the mid to upper 330 pound (US) range. Following treatment with a Lasix intravenous drip and other care, at discharge I weighed in at 300 pounds (US). This morning I weighed in around 280 pounds (US), give or take a few.
Nearly a decade ago, I was diagnosed with lymph-edema, and I had to wear compression socks to help control swelling in my legs. After returning home, I havenāt worn the socks, although I still have them, and if my leg swelling returns, Iāll resume using them, but for now, my feet and lags arenāt swelling up, so the medication I take for my CHF may be helping my lymph-edema too! If you want more detail about my condition, Iāve responded at length to several other community members, so you can search for my recent posts posts (most are within the past week or so) to read all Iāve already written elsewhere here. Please donāt be overly concerned for me. As far as I know, my condition isnāt immediately live threatening, and doesnāt seem to be overly critical, although I am taking my situation very seriously and doing everything my now many doctors are telling me to do 
Now that Iām home, Iām posting about my many adventures with my computer as I try new things in Garuda Linux. In a few days, or a week or so, Iāll probably be writhing about this new to me backup utility Iāve found thatās available for GNU/Linux, the Mac, and Windows. Iāve just started experimenting with it today in Garuda Linux, and if it works as well for me here as Iām hoping it will, I may switch to it in Windows too. The backup āengineā is called restic, and thereās a configuration wrapper named resticprofile that makes it very easy to configure my backup(s). Initially, Iām experimenting with an incremental backup in which I keep up to thirty daily snapshots, so I can have access to all of my data files and the state they were in on any of the past thirty days. so stay tuned ā¦
Ernie
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Restic works at the filesystem level. It does not use rsync, but it should be able to snapshot a live linux.
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I understand that, and it may not be the image-based backup system Iām really looking for, but I think itās probably a bit of a step up from the likes of TimeShift and company, while still being easier to set up than rsync. Also, it does seem to be fast, at least based on the initial run I executed earlier today, after repeated dry-runs that got things set up like I want, and helped me to correct any typoās or other mistakes/misunderstandings I introduced. With the wrapper app (resticprofile), setup is very user friendly and based on several configuration file formats, with TOML and YAML recommended (I chose TOML, because Iām familiar with it from setting up Starship). I have it scheduled to run daily at midnight, so Iāll see what happens after that time tonight, as well as when I donāt have Garuda running at the scheduled runtime.
Everythingās still very much in the experimental stage, but one advantage for using it is that itās available for GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows, so it could become my go-to backup tool someday, unless, of course, I find something that can create image-based incremental backup sets similarly to how Macrium Reflect does, by creating full, differential, or incremental system images, and managing the creation of live rescue media for restoration purposes when the computerās not boot-able. Iād even settle for such a GNU/Linux specific solution as long as it offers the feature set mentioned above. So far, I havenāt found anything like that, but an open source solution similar to Macrium Reflect would be perfect for me.
If anyone knows of such a tool, please reply, and Iāll check it out!
Ernie
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There are 2 sorts of backup
- image basedā¦ they copy partitions or whole disksā¦ eg clonezilla
- filesystem based ā¦ they copy files or whole filesystems ā¦ eg borg, restic
For data protection filesystem based backups are fine
For rolling back the system filesystem based backups are fine
For protection against disk failure image based backups are best
Any backup is better than none
It is more important to backup your personal data than the OS. You can always reinstall an OS. If you lose personal data, it is gone forever.
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can I run clonezilla from within my running Garuda Linux system?
UPDATE!!!
I googled my question, and while itās possible, itās unreliable, so thatās not an option, so Iāll continue with my monthly Rescuezilla manual imaging sessions, and daily restic snapshots. Iām just hoping to find a way to automate the process, like I can do with Macrium Reflect
Ernie
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Clonezilla is an excellent piece of software. I been using it for the past 5 years or more.
The drawback is I run it as a standalone session meaning I boot the software.
I use CLonezilla only for the system part of my PC, backing up only the OS.
I use FreeFileSync for backing up my data. Again I consider it excellent software with an
excellent GUI for rsync backups.
I too use the free option of Macrium Reflect for backing up my Windows OS.
Keep us posted on what you use for backing up your system.
Take care,
Howard
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I will! Iām currently experimenting with restic, and resticprofile, a wrapper for restic. Iāve set it up to backup my home directory, and all sub-directories. While restic has a way to schedule backups, I found a way to run the backup command from within a script, using systemd for the scheduling. This method lets me get notifications when the backup starts, when it completes successfully, or when thereās an error. The service ran at midnight tonight/this morning at 12:00 AM, but I missed watching it because I was distracted, but the systemctl --user list-timers command reports that the backup ran as scheduled. Iāll have to watch it run again tomorrow/to-night so I can see if my notifications are sent too. When I ran dry-runs using the shell script I created for fish (a function?), everything worked as intended, but I want to see the notifications as theyāre sent, in real time.
Iāll have to look into freefilesync. It may work better than restic for me, who knows?
Ernie
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May I amend: A verified backup is better than a backup.
I had such a situation years ago. I thought Iād be safe until I tried to restoreā¦
Believe me, Iāve learned my lesson. Every newly created backup scheme has to be verified at least once.
Nowadays, all of my backups have been used for restoring several times. (timesync, image, and tarball)
True, but unfortunately itās a matter of time. I try to imagine how much time it would take to reinstall my OS and all applications in use to get it close to my current workstation.
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You betā¦ that is absolutely vital.
Clonezilla has an option to verify that each image is recoverable. It takes about twice as long, but I always do it.
I dont know what verify options other backup apps have? One way to be sure is to do an actual recovery.
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I restored from my TimeSync uncountable times.
Same for my images using Redo Rescue.
Same for all my regular tarball backups. (home, Waterfox, Thunderbird)
And I mean really restore the saveset, not just compare afterward.
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FFS works like rsync, but it does not use rsync , it has its own algorithm.
LuckyBackup does much the same thing, but it does use rsync.
Both LuckyBackup and rsync adhere strictly to Linux limitsā¦ 255 character filenames and 4096 character paths.
FFS and Borg do not have these limits.
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Yes , that is what I understood you meant. ā¦ bring the files back to a spare partition and compare with the origjnal.
Hardware issues can really mess up backups. I had a 2Tb external usb disk fail once. ā¦ it was silentā¦ it accepted my backups but they would not restore.
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And IIRC an ugly UI with a last-century look. But of course itās a matter of taste.
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I could not find a backup program to my liking and resorted to simply copying my Home folder to a big external hard drive. I know that this system works because I have restored said Home folder successfully several times after formatting the machine.
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Yes that works, and you can easily see the backup filesystem and recover individual files.
I would do the copy with rsync rather than cp.
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@ernie :
Hi Ernie,
thanks for your detailed health report.
IĀ“m glad youĀ“re making progress. IĀ“ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
Excellent.
And dealing with topics like the present one and contributing to the forum seems a very good way to pursue your target. 
All the best from Rosika
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Thats my way also, better system, perhaps slower and a couple of external hard disk is the way I always go
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It is actually faster, because there is no compression. It takes more time to compress a file than to transfer it.
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I really admire people who are able to say ā¦ āthat is all over complicated, do it this wayā.
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