243

Update 2/4/09
//thanks mithras and flo for this short overview:

For this idea these programs came up: LuckyBackup, Back in Time, kdar and rdiff-backup (with a qt-gui) . Here's a short overview to get the pros and cons of all programs listed and make a suggestion to improve one of them to be included into kde.
luckyBackup and B-I-T are...

* Both have backup and restore capabilities
* Both have filter options to exclude certain files
* Both are rsync based
* Both are not suited for backups on fat-formated devices (blame fat for this)

luckyBackup

* Fully Qt4 based
* Interface is cluttered and difficult to understand for first time usage but gets an update in april (according to luckyb, the author)
* The author welcomes this idea, is active in this forum and want to help/is motivated to do the necessary things

Back in Time

* Much better interface for configuration
* Smart option to remove backups (like TimeMachine)

'dar' with its frontend kdar.
Advantages:
* real backup (big files, permissions, etc.)

Disadvantages:
* don't know if UI is up to date
* one can't access the backuped files without dar. (Might be an advantageous as users won't modify the backup this way). This is not possible with time-machine either.
* not sure it's multi-platform. (but should be easy to find out).

rdiff-backup:
advantages:
* all advantages of the rsync-based backups.
* handles permissions fine
* built for backuping (contrary to rsync)
* multi-platform
* fuse client that mounts different incremental backups as directories. (did not try the last version).

disadvantages:
* can't handle 4GB files if the target can't handle them.
* no UI (yet)





3/23/09
Origin post/idea before discussion:

Hi everyone,

one thing that I really miss during my kde usage: an easy to use and good integrated backup-tool. I just found luckyBackup on kde-apps.org and it seems to be already very evolved, functional and wide-tested. It has a very high rating there, too (more than digikam or k3b...). Imho, this cute program could fit very well in extragear...
what do you think?
here are the links:
luckybackup:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.ph ... tent=94391
http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/

back in time:
http://www.le-web.org/back-in-time/

KDE 4 definitely needs a decent backup tool. I very much like the approach that the conduit-project of GNOME takes as it integrates backup with many related tasks like mobile phone synchronization etc. In my opinion it would make a lot of sense to use that framework to avoid dupplications of efforts.

Check out this post too
synchronisation-fr ... 39126.html

A decent RSync-based backup tool for KDE4 is a must! I think we all agree about that.

I think it'd be great if such a backup tool would store separately settings; e-mails and IM logs; PIM info; documents; etc.

Just my 0,02 €

P.S. Keep was using RSync, and luckyBackup does as well, amongst many others.

Alternately, you could just setup a cron job to tar the contents of $KDEHOME every so often.

bcooksley wrote:Alternately, you could just setup a cron job to tar the contents of $KDEHOME every so often.

of course i can. but that has nothing to do with usability in face of enduser. i *really* don't doubt that you and me are able to set up a cron job. but if you compare kde4 and its goals, you'll see that it is *also* for "normal user" who don't now what/how a cron job works and how to set it up, configure it etc. ok, there are several scripts etc. in the internet but that's what i mean. you have to search it active...
a nice integrated backup tool (luckybackup is going to get a new nice gui in v.0.3) in the systemsettings with auto-backup your /home when starting kde to say an external drive, option etc. is really hot! no doubt that time machine in mac os x is really a great idea (only think i admire in mac ), the ease of use, its function...somethin kde also needs, imho!

Or a VCS could be used.
E.g. Bazaar or SVN...

bcooksley wrote:Alternately, you could just setup a cron job to tar the contents of $KDEHOME every so often.

Then again we could also let Sebastian Trüg work only on NEPOMUK in peace and instead of K3b use the 'wodim' by hand in the command-line

But, seriously, on modern desktops and laptops a standard Cron doesn't cut the mustard anymore — those boxen aren't up 24/7 neither are their meant to be. Of course, there's FCron that's a modern Cron and more suited for such systems, but on a typical laptop with a smallish HDD and is being moved around a lot, a user would most likely want to have a GUI to manage his/her backups when (s)he can.

I was thinking of a similar thing... my original idea was a simple shell program that compress into a bz2 archive the /home/ directory and save a list of the installed programs to reinstall them automatically (i use ubuntu, so it's really simple to do this a thing). I think that this idea would be really useful for linux users, expecially an automatic recovery of the programs for distros that have a package system. I' would be happy to help writing such a program.

Keep was a good program. I really like rdiff-backup for it's speed, archive size and restore features. A new implementation of Keep (with Time Machine in mind perhaps) is a good idea!

Probably more of a Dolphin thing, but full integration of Back in time or something similar would be great...

Vroomfondle wrote:Probably more of a Dolphin thing, but full integration of Back in time or something similar would be great...

Yeah, just like that !
Like what they made with OpenSolaris, you can restore your data from a point in time. This would be great if KDE & Dolphin could do such a thing !

And a backup of our whole KDE4 desktop would be very nice also, so we could keep our parameters after re-install a distribution or even change the distribution (well, with of course some incompatibilities, but it's still easier than configure from the beginning again).

I never really tried backups, but when I wanted to I took a look at Keep. It was pretty good.

What I'd like in a backup program is KIO support.

plaristote wrote:And a backup of our whole KDE4 desktop would be very nice also, so we could keep our parameters after re-install a distribution or even change the distribution (well, with of course some incompatibilities, but it's still easier than configure from the beginning again).

Yes. Like I've already said, it would be great to automatically reinstall the programs... it's so a boring thing that it's better if your computer do it himself.

Zorba wrote:

plaristote wrote:And a backup of our whole KDE4 desktop would be very nice also, so we could keep our parameters after re-install a distribution or even change the distribution (well, with of course some incompatibilities, but it's still easier than configure from the beginning again).

Yes. Like I've already said, it would be great to automatically reinstall the programs... it's so a boring thing that it's better if your computer do it himself.

Well some distros have that ability. I know Arch has it. You can build a package of your current system so that next time you're installing you just install that one package and your done. AFAIK.
But I agree with KDE specific back-up tool.

Vroomfondle wrote:Probably more of a Dolphin thing, but full integration of Back in time or something similar would be great...

I agree. I have been looking for a 'Time Machine' like backup program that was actively maintained and Back in time really fit. It is very well thought out. Backup, historical view and restoration process are kept simple. It manages automation too and uses standard tools.

Simple and easy local backup.

Not pure Kde though.