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Hello,
It would be really nice if we had a backup (snapshot) tool like Apple's "Time Machine" integrated in KDE. We already have all the core parts, since we have already anacron (for the scheduled jobs) and rsnapshot (for the periodic, incremental, hard link based snapshots).
We also can mount a directory on top of another directory in read-only bind mode, so we can preserve files avalable for restoration from modification.

The only thing missing is a nice frontend to let the unexperienced user configure the backup and restore files from snapshots.

This restore tool could just be a file manager that displays in different panes a scrollale time line of the various snapshots of a specific file or directory, so the user can look at different versions of that file or directory and choose whether he/she wants to restore it or not.

I think also that this frontend shoud warn the user when the space avalilable is low. Dolphin/Konqueror integration would be really great!

I love rsnapshot, and it saved my life many times, but you know, all that configuration file editing could be scaring for some new users, and they are the same users that really need a reliable way to do automatic backups.

What do you think about this kind of thing?

IIRC, a developer is working on a time machine-ish tool called Mabumbi. Information can be found in this thread: integrate-an-easy- ... 39107.html

Apart from Mabumbi, I seem to recall a tool called backintime that also seems to be time-machine-ish. I don't know how good either of them are since I'm, well, rather accustomed to my own scripts for backups...which, as you say, are not all that newbie-friendly.

Yes we miss this feature in KDE.

** - Please read following note on "Time Machine"

Time Machine. A giant leap backward.
More than a mere backup, Time Machine makes an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac--digital photos, music, movies, TV shows, and documents--so you can go back in time to recover anything.

Set it, then forget it.
You can start using Time Machine in seconds. The first time you attach an external drive to your Mac, Time Machine asks if you'd like to use that drive as your backup. Say yes and Time Machine takes care of everything else. Automatically. In the background. You'll never have to worry about backing up again.

Back up everything.
Time Machine keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac. That includes system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on any given day--so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past.

Go back in time to restore any file on your system.

Go back in time.
Enter the Time Machine browser in search of your long-lost files and you see exactly how your computer looked on the dates you're browsing. Select a specific date, let Time Machine find your most recent changes, or do a Spotlight search to find exactly what you're looking for. Once you do, click Restore and Time Machine brings it back to the present. Time Machine restores individual files, complete folders, or your entire computer--putting everything back the way it was and where it should be.

Preferential treatment.
Customize Time Machine by modifying the following behaviors in System Preferences:

Backup disk. Change the drive or volume you're backing up to. Or back up to a Mac OS X Server computer.
Do not back up. By default, Time Machine backs up your entire system. But you can also select items you'd rather not back up.
Encrypt backup data. Turn on encryption to store your backup securely.
Backup storage time limits. Manage older backups so your backup drive doesn't fill up.

I tested backintime and others. Best one is rdiff-backup. very simple, everything under control, fast, silent, robust, simple to use even for a not-too-console-affine guy like me... can only recommend it.

There are few like Back In Time, trying to make nice GUI for rsync and other tools.

But so far I have found one of the best ones is Timevault. It is under development and is lacking developers, but it has great potential!

http://blog.chatonka.com/2009/12/timeva ... ss-update/

I use backintime and I'm very happy of it.
I tried all what I could find, but at the end I use only backintime (and cron).

It would be really nice if backintime or something similar was integrated with KDE.

So, for example, you could have an action in the devices plasmoid to backup on your external disk if you used it before with backintime. I could also automatically set a different icon for that backup drive, so you can recognize it easily.

It should "know" if your external backup disk is connected, and start or delay a backup job, depending if it's connected or not.

It should also be able to use network shares for backups.

Or we could change the configuration of the backup tool from inside systemsettings, to make more visible to new users.

It should also use standard KDE notifications, giving you a hint of how much data need to be backed up, and how long it will take, and be aware of energy saving settings, since it won't start a long backup job when your laptop is running low on battery.

It should also send you a notification to remind you to connect your backup disk if it's elapsed too much time since last backup.

You got the idea, I hope.

regards
gerlos