Backups
Snapshots, and getting back.
Cyclop OS takes a weekly snapshot of the system so that a bad day can be undone. A snapshot is not a copy of your documents, and the difference matters more than it sounds.
What is set up for you
The paid editions ship Timeshift with a schedule already written: weekly, and the last three kept. That covers the case it exists for, the one that begins with "it worked yesterday".
Nothing runs until you have said where the snapshots go. The first time it opens, it asks.
- Open Timeshift from the applications menu
- Choose where the snapshots go: a separate partition, or an external disk
- Never the system disk itself. A snapshot sitting on the disk you are trying to recover is not a snapshot
- From then on the weekly schedule runs on its own
A snapshot is not a backup of your documents
A snapshot puts the system back the way it was. It is the answer to an update that went wrong, or a change you regret.
Your photos, your documents and your mail deserve a copy somewhere else: another disk, another machine, or both. One disk that dies takes its snapshots with it, and that is not a flaw in snapshots, it is what they are.
Take one by hand before anything risky
Before a large upgrade, before installing a driver, before touching a partition. It takes a few minutes and it is the cheapest insurance on the machine.
Restore
- Open Timeshift
- Pick the snapshot by its date
- Restore, and let the machine restart
If the machine will not start at all any more, do not begin here. Read the page on a machine that will not start first: the first move there is to copy your files out, not to repair anything.
What you should see
Timeshift lists its snapshots with their dates and the room they take. After a restore the machine restarts in the state of that date, and the snapshots taken since are still there.
If it does not work
- No snapshot was ever taken: the schedule does not start until a destination has been chosen. Open Timeshift once and choose one.
- There is no room: three weekly snapshots need room. An external disk is the honest answer, not deleting snapshots to make space for snapshots.
- On Community there is no preset: install Timeshift from Cyclop Store and set it up yourself, or take an edition where it is already done.