Thanks tolerating me. And also for confirming that my partition scheme is good for timeshift snapshot. Puzzle remains that restoring a snapshot broke my system. Or I made mistake somewhere.
your logs are a mess, just do a clean install… and backup your files …
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Thanks for guidance. My priority is RELIABLE and easily restorable snapshots of Manjaro system as well as /home
My system info is in first message. My partition scheme is
sda1 —> 300mb — FAT32 — /boot/efi
sda2 —> Balance (about 922.42GB) — BTRFS — Mounted on /, /home, /run/timeshift/backup, /var/cache, /var/log
sda3 —> 8.8GB — Swap
I will clean install tomorrow. Welcome any suggestion.
Would it be possible to move /home subvolume to a separate partition?
Is btrfs a good choice?
Is timeshift a good choice?
Off topic
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402154
We should disable baloo when using BTRFS or ZFS
balooctl status
balooctl disable
balooctl purge
balooctl status
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Timeshift has some bug for me, but it creates rw (read-write mode) snapshot that would be worse secure than read-only snapshot. btrfs-assistant (GUI of snapper) is a good choice. This is my opinion.
I haven’t seen any reply excluding a failing drive…
As I already told:
New install: option “something different”
sda1 —> 300 MB - FAT32 - /boot/efi
sda2 —> 120 GiB - ext4 - mounted for / (root)
sda3 —> ~800 GiB - ext4 - mounted as /home
btrs is too difficult to handle - you experienced already?!
Timeshift is a good choice backing up system.
Best: Timeshift directory on an separate drive.
Next best: Timeshift backup directory on /home
AND: home/user better do a manual backup on external hard-drive.
Backup only non hidden folders except .mozilla / .thunderbird / .config
and .zshrc and .zhistory and may be usefull: hidden config folders of special programs.
Timeshift cannot backup system EXOR home - disadvantage…
“Deja-Dup” for backing up /home on external drive may be a solution? (I do not use deja-dup).
https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/DejaDup → KDE (?) “KBackup”
A usefull program should do incremental backups instead of full backups - saves disk-space!
Nah, at least for myself that’s not quite correct. I make a backup of many hidden files & folders in my home folder as to save myself the trouble of re-configuring many apps, and it saves myself from needing to re-download several gigabytes of data because I use Steam (and I don’t want to re-download all those games I bought).
For example I backup locations such as: .wine, .qmmp, and so on, and that means I also backup many file and folders found in .config (as you mentioned that) but also .local as well.
Sometimes “a config” is broken and can cause the “Oh No” whitescreen of death 
So beginning from scratch CAN save time, but MUST not, then you are right…
Not tested yet…
Thanks a lot for caring to suggest something that may help. However, I have already initiated backup of user data, and fresh install. Moreover, it appears that use of Maxi would require good understanding of linux, something where I am weak. Thanks again for good spirit.
After all that time, if I am in the situation of @abad.140101, instead of wasting time and effort, I would do the following (conidering that he mentioned
I would do the following:
1- To backup I would subscribe to pCloud (whether one year only or lifetime) (Feel free to use my invitation link - and I will highly appreciate -https://e.pcloud.com/#page=register&invite=3TrVZSh5cH7 ).
I personally prefer to have my data on the cloud not localy or USB.
2- I boot from a USB and upload my data (or backup to another USB)
3- Do a fresh install. BTRFS on boot/system ONLY. EXT4 for home and data.
4- I would not use any snapshoting (e.g. timeshift) as @abad.140101 is using KDE, Baloo will cause problems with snapshoting.
5- Then I install pCloud (Download pCloud Drive - Solve Low Disk Space on your device) to restore my data. Any new files added to the folder will be automatically backed up
6- Manjaro installs the latest LTS kernel by default, I would install one earlier LTS kernel, just in case.
This way, I will have my system safe (BTRFS) and my data backed up real time (pCloud) (though i would consider buy a lifetime/one time payment on pCloud not annual subscription)
Again do not use BTRFS on anything other than system.
I hope this helps.
Pleas let us know how r things going.
EDIT: I personally prefer pCloud for privacy and data are encrypted.
I would recommend the opposite:
Clean install with BTRFS and afterwards create additional root subvolumes:
-
@users, create a folder in it with your username, mount via fstab to /mnt/users and move Desktop/Documents/Pictures/Videos/Media into @users/username, symlink back to $HOME.
-
@usercache, mount via fstab to $HOME/.cache, to exclude from snapshots.
-
@downloads, mount via fstab to $HOME/.cache.
In Timeshift disable quotas (should be disabled by default in upcoming version) and include @home.
Now, /mnt/users/yourusername can be synced with whatever cloud provider, self hosted solution or backup disk, without also syncing the mess that /Downloads usually is.
Timeshift can snapshot @home without having to include the browser cache (1GB) and other temp stuff.
Your snapshots will be pretty clean.
I am using BTRFS this way for years for myself, parents and several other people.
I also created a post install script that contains the complete configuration and personalisation you normally do, so a clean install for me is really not an issue, I run the script, install my webDAV client/copy the `@users’ snapshot from backup disk and everything is like it was before clean install, without real effort or time wasted.
I never restore @home because it might cause conflicts with newer versions of applications etc.
Because now your issue is caused by A, tomorrow it will be caused by B. You just want to have system independent of temp data and precious user documents.
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Just trying to learn more.
I know BTRFS and Baloo don’t work OK. There is a bug filed with Baloo that every snapshot Baloo reindexes the new snapshot! This way system is always busy indexing, and search results give several results all pointing to the same file.
Are you using KDE + BTRFS + Baloo and having no problem of continuous indexing and multiple results for the same file.
I would highly appreciate if you make another thread and give us further details how to do it.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, for me it would not make sense to go nuclear and switch filesystems because 1 single application has a bug with it, especially if it is not an absolutely critical application for your daily activities.
I looked it up and it seems its a file indexing app. Not sure how many people really need to search within files, if not, no reason for this app to run at all right? Just disabling should work, but he writes he still has issues. Or at least this app should not even index the Timeshift (or any other) snapshots? Makes no sense to me to index those. No way to exclude folders?
I’m on Gnome, although always have been interested in KDE but it just had overwhelming amount of configuration options, like multiple config screens you can reach in a single right-click context-menu. Seemed like a bit of a personalisation/configuration rabbit hole to me. That is the only thing keeping me on Gnome. It’s still highly configurable through commands (gsettings mostly).
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Hi @zilexa
Unfortunately Baloo is essential for me. I may call it the main use of my laptop!
I have lots of documents (contracts, invoices, legal, medical… etc. PLUS a few “tons” of books (I’m a bookworm).
So, Baloo is essential for me.
What I suggested was based on my own personal experience after about 6 months of distrohopping and trying almost everything and installing maybe 2 times a day!
I would use fd instead of baloo.
Example:
fd <file name>
The search algorithm of fd looks more efficient .
Har
Great in a terminal, but hardly the same as hitting menu and start to type a name, is it?
vs
Dropbox/Admin/cueFlac.txt
Dropbox/MusicPlaylists/dsf2flac
MusicPlaylists/dsf2flac
The menu shows some non-existent (deleted) files, but they are still in baloo cache.
Baloo search file name and content of any files (It supports some file format. e.g pdf, txt…), fd does not, but it searchs only file name.