Gaining a better insight to MX Snapshot & Snapshot Repeats / Updates
 

I believe that MX snapshot is one of the best point 'n' click tools that anyone can ask for in a Linux distro. With that said, I'd like to gain a better understanding of how it works, thus I have some questions. Most things are pretty much self-explanetory, but when you open up the MX Snapshot tool, on the second screen the user is able to see a variety of compression schemes for the snapshot that's about to be created. The xz is usually the default compression. But there are also schemes for lz4, lzo, and gzip. I'd like to know at what particular time any of those compression schemes would be best to use?

For example, if a user is creating the very first snapshot of a system, is the default xz always the best one to use, and why?

If a snapshot has been installed on another system and at some point several months or even a year later down the road another newer snapshot of that same system is desired, is the default xz compression at that point still the best compression scheme to use?

Does the MX Snapshot tool work with all USB types i.e. USB 2.0 USB 3.0 and USB C, or is USB 2.0 the best type of USB stick to use for a snapshot?

Also, why are there four different compression schemes to select, and which specific (best?) purpose (Operating System type?) does each of them serve?

Finally, is it possible to add apps or other data to an existing snapshot on a usb stick (or external drive), without having to create a new snapshot from scratch? I'm asking that last question because I work with snapshots probably about every 3 months. My methodology is always identical. Yet I'd say that 50% of the snapshots work from the getgo, while the other 50% either work only partially, or in some rare cases not at all. This behavior is confusing since the method never changes. Is it possible that the compression schemes have something to do with that?

Thank you.

Awww shucks, no answers at all? Bummer ... :confused:

Umm, sorry, I was just lurking here hoping to learn. Sooo, is MX using btrfs? If so there are more distros using btrfs-snapshots like openSUSE tumbleweed (which I use). Maybe you'd like to dig (google ;)) there...

Different compression rates from the different programs.

If you need other programs, install them before making a new snapshot.

I mainly use AntiX, but they use basically the same tool, &, I personally, have never had any that don't boot - not sure why you would be having any problems in that direction.


P.S. If you really need specific answers for MX, I suggest their own forum, great bunch of people, many shared with AntiX forum & development.
https://forum.mxlinux.org/

Thanks for the information thus far. The compression types were of interest to me since the xz option always appears for me as the pre-selected default. Once, just for the heck of it I used the lz4 option which ended up with an error message on the screen after the snapshot tool got going. So it'd be nice to know if xz SHOULD always be the default for ext4 and Windows types, or if other listed compression types are also acceptable. lz4 didn't work for me ...

Well, the problems that I've encountered either had to do with grub errors which were resolved once I edited grub by hand from the live snapshot. Booting the live snapshot has never been a problem, nor has the installation. Anytime there's been a problem it's always been with the boot process of the finished installation.

I run a family server with a handful of domains, manage multiple accounts for computer work that I do, and am already an active member on 3 Linux related forums. The last thing that I need is yet another forum account with login credentials. I joined Linuxquestions.org because it encompassed pretty much anything Linux related that anyone could have questions about, and because this forum has been around for a very long time, making me hope that even complex issues that may reach back quite awhile could be resolved here.
Have a great Sunday!

But you already had an account there!
I wonder why it got closed...
See my post here.
Once again, you blow up your Linux expertise and feign "business" to justify not doing your homework.
And then obliquely lie to us.

As I wrote previously:

@ondoho
Just because you believe something, that doesn't make it so! Not unless you're Donald Trump that is. Are you related to him? Sure seems like it.

MX does not install btrfs by default, but it can use it. MX snapshots are not the same thing as btrfs snapshots.

The USB version has nothing to do with anything other than the maximum available bandwidth. Snapshots will run on any version, but the speed of the transfer will vary. USB2 is much slower than any version of USB3.

There is no belief involved here, anybody can click this link and see that you already had an account on MXLinux forums. Yet you tell us that you are way too busy to get "yet another forum account with login credentials." I wonder why it got closed?

Once again, when people call you out on your lies you resort to petty insults instead of explaining yourself.

Wow, now I finally know what the heck you're talking about. Seriously though --> Linwinux? So according to you I must be the only person in the World who can make the connection between Linux + Windows in order to come up with Linwinux? Now I understand your thinking completely. And the earth is flat as well as Scientology is a real religion. Falls right in hand with what I said about Trump though. You really must be part of that family in some manner, to be going around spewing your "facts" which are based on assumptions or make-belief and nothing more. Get a real hobby! Oh sorry, I forgot that you already have a hobby. Going around and padding your stats with utterly useless comments. Over a dozen now, just for little ol' me. :hattip:

@sgosnell
Sorry about that. Ondoho has been repeatedly hijacking my threads with his own irrelevant accusatory dribble. Anyway, what I was really trying to understand better, is the differences between the different compression types, why they even exist, and which compression should be used for whatever specific purposes? Every time that I create a snapshot for distribution and see those compression types, it always makes me wonder what that's all about?

Compression type is not important. Different people have come up with different compression algorithms over the years, and all are available. They have minor differences/advantages/disadvantages, but the difference is really undetectable with modern hardware and software. Use any of them, or none. You will not notice any real difference.

Oh, okay. I've tried creating snapshots with lz4 compression, just to see what would happen. It's the only time that I ever received errors during snapshot creation, so I figured that it was related to the type of hardware since the software is always the same on my systems. I tried that about a year ago, and then again just recently. Two different laptops ... but the installed software was still the same.

The difference in compression algorithms is purely in software, and has nothing to do with hardware.

Some compression algorithms heavily compress the contents into a very small size, but may take a while to do so, especially when a large file or groups of files and directories are involved. Other compression algorithms do not compress quite as much, but emphasize a rapid, well-organized compression and still others are a balance between the two extremes. I don't have the specifics of what each algorithm does, but it's not difficult to search with any search Website.

https://www.unixmen.com/top-15-file-...ilities-linux/
https://www.networkworld.com/article...mpression.html

gzip file compression. The gzip tool is most popular and fast file compression utility in Linux. ...
lzma file compression. ...
xz file compression. ...
bzip2 file compression. ...
pax file compression. ...
Peazip file compressor. ...
7zip file compressor. ...
shar file compression.
Source: https://www.google.com/search?client...w=1368&bih=590

https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...size-reduction
https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/s...n-using-linux/