I need to backup my Fedora 8 install regularly to an external hard drive and there seems to be nothing that comes with it to do this. I've searched the rpms and found nothing but BackupPC which is command line Perl and not working for me. Any visual point-and-click backup programs out there for Fedora 8?

# rpm -qi dump
Not a GUI tool, but it is very powerfull.

Personally, I think GUI's are over rated when applied to systems administration tasks like backup.

That said, if you go with the Enterprise Edition of Amanda, you will get the Zmanda Management Console which will allow you to install, configure and manage backup environments from a graphical interface: http://www.zmanda.com/blogs/?p=44

Where it be command-line or GUI, which folders should I be backing up besides my home folder? Sys? What else?

Thanks.

That depends what you are doing with the machine and what you are trying to achieve with your backups.

What do you use your computer for?

I use it for writing papers for grad school, addresses, calendar... I also want all my personalized settings, my music and pics.

Then you probably only need to backup /home (unless you want to backup critical application configs, etc.) This would mean that in the worst case, you could reinstall your OS and apps, then restore the backed-up /home.

Note that it's always recommended to keep a copy of your backups off-site as well (just in case of fire, etc)

Reminds me of when the Economics Department at the University of Michigan burned down. There was a graduate student who was just a month or two from defending his dissertation and receiving his Ph.D. He was on his knees out on the lawn bawling. All of his data, his analysis, his writing went up in flames. He was told he couldn't defend, because he had no data to defend. Years of work down the drain. Wasted. Money down the toilet. Back to square one, or just give up and walk away.

For those of you who don't know, there's not much that's more draining than getting through a Ph.D. program.

how about give a try to google.
google

When I did my Ph.D, I kept copies of stuff everywhere - sent disks to my parents, the whole works. Didn't need it of course - you never do when you take precautions - but as soon as you don't ...

On googling for backups, I'm happy for someone to post a question like this without lots of research. What he's looking for is a recommendation - that's pretty hard to get just by seeing what's available (do a category search on sourceforge for example, then tell me which apps are good). Where people need to google first is where they say app A caused error Y- how do a I fix it. Usually the answer comes up on the first hit.

My 2c mini rant

See above post, but my hint to you is to use

www.google.com/linux

I's a better filter than putting linux in the word list, and easier too.


Rgds

I plan to have my thesis on two computers and a backup external drive in one location as well as on a USB flash drive I have attached to my keys, so I'll have a copy with me wherever I go (with eventual plans to turn the flash drive into a bootable live Linux distro so I can work from anywhere.)

Anyway, I've managed to figure out a backup program I found and it seems to be working. I'm a little nervous at not having the opportunity to test the restore but maybe I can do that somehow?

Old saying 'A backup isn't, unless you've restored it...'

Yes. Do That. Sooner rather than later. Safe vs. Sorry, and all that.

But you won't get any help here with the "somehow?" unless you can say more than "a backup program". On the other hand, you seem to have found your way, so maybe you don't need any more help.

I have often thought about a gui for backups myself. Haven't found any good ones yet. Those that are there tend to be too complex for a simple home machine.
I have ended up creating a script that uses tar and zip and the command line cd burn utilities to write to my DVD-RW. In terms of what, yes, you might be ok, just backing up /home (if you also have pictures and mp3s there). I also back up my /etc directory, so I have my settings. /etc is small compared to /home, so its very little extra space and work involved. I have also thought of adding /boot to the backup (grub and menu settings in addition to having a working kernel).

If you do find a simple, good gui, let me know

EDIT: One extra thing I have been looking for is to add a MYSQL backup to my script. I have been playing around with some LAMP stuff and have some things in mysql. Easy to forget that part. Not sure where mysql usually saves its data (does it use /var for much?). I guess it ought to work with just having a backup of /home, if that's where all the data it needs are saved...