Running Linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. 64bit version.

I've never had anything but problems with the backup program, icon looks like a "safe"! It just will not run on 16.04 stays in a loop or seems to back up but doesn't!

What is the best backup (GUI,hopefully) program you guys use? I need to get something working before I need it!
I checked in "Ubuntu software" but doesn't seem to be much there that's considered good.

Sorry but the best backup program you will end with could be a simple script
What is important is the plan, what things need to be backed up and how often

For my home directory, personnaly I use a script that is executed daily by cron
The script detects date value and chooses to make full backup or incremental backup according to the date (and the plan)

1 members found this post helpful.

The old one you were using was probably deja-dup - did it produce names with "duplicity" as pat of it ?.
The latest Mint seems to now ship a "local" script called backup (probably from Ubuntu) that uses rsync (like keefaz I suspect). This is a much better option as rsync is a basic building block for posix systems, so you can always "get at" your backup even if the tool that created it is not available.
So try the (new) backup tool if available, else look at something like rsnapshot which will allow you to set up similar to keefaz excellent option.
(I don't use Ubuntu, so the Mint reference due to another recent thread).

1 members found this post helpful.

Not for this one, I use tar with a timestamp file. I chose this solution to have archived tar.gz files which can be saved on usb key or uploaded somewhere

1 members found this post helpful.

rsnapshot seems to serve me well. Easy to restore, relatively easy on storage space since it uses hard links.

1 members found this post helpful.

The GUI application FreeFileSync (http://www.freefilesync.org/) works the charm for me.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think there are a number of good choices in the repos. Might use different search terms?

Anways, it depends on what you want backed up. If you only want some data partition then a simple window manager can copy files. If you want automated filesystem then maybe zfs or btrfs may be of use. There may or may not be an advantage to you in cloning off the base distro. So that leaves us to what do you really want to protect and how often?

Acronis is a pretty good commercial tool and has had linux support for a very long time.

If you just want to clone off a partition then Gparted works pretty well.

I think that Ubuntu or some distro offers a live state backup utility. I forgot the name. Looked promising, don't think it was deja-dupe.

Hi Jefro, I want to back up Home/Downloads/Documents on a weekly basis. That should be enough to get me going again I think. As it stands now I haven't had a backup in about 2 years (lucky)! This is because deja- dup refuses to work (Ubuntu 16.04).

As I understand what you have said, you want to periodically back up your documents directory and the tarring is really just to reduce the size so you can move it somewhere else if you want to, something which you might or might not do each time. If this is correct, I would suggest you look at rsync (or rsnapshot which uses rsync) again. Your backup is a mirror of the directories or files you want backed up. This means restoration, if it becomes necessary, is a simple matter. As far as simply storing the backup there is no need to compress the backup. rsnapshot uses hard links for those things that have not changed since the last backup which means it only uses the bytes necessary to store a pointer, not to store the file again. Also, it does not replace the previous backup(s). When nothing changes the increase in the backup size is imperceptible. This also means it is easy to restore a single file or the whole thing or anything in between. If you then need to compress it to move, you obviously can very easily do that as a separate action, a separate cron job, or even (I believe, though I haven't tried it) as a script for rsnapshot to run at the end of each backup (it will run scripts before and after as part of its run if you tell it to).

Another major advantage I see with rsnapshot is that you define your backup retention policies. You can do it any way you wish, but the program really has in mind that you will do something like actually backing up every x number of hours or whatever, Lets say you backup up 12 hours. So then you would tell it to retain two hourly backups, perhaps 7 daily backups, 4 weekly backups, 12 monthly backups, 10 annual backups. When you run the other backups (daily, etc), a new file is not really created. The oldest of the next step more frequent files is renamed.

I won't go any further, I think you get the idea. I can only say it sounds to me like what you want, especially with the post-script capability. Personally I backup four computers onto an external drive on one of them. Unless there are major file changes or you are creating the initial backup it only takes 45 seconds to maybe 5 minutes if I have added a couple of iso files for the lot.

Does it work with DDS/DAT tape drives?

I'm using Storix Backup ver. 4 which I found on Archive.org.

The company wants $550 for the current ver.

I'm a Home user that doesn't need Corp. level daily backups.

Oh, but File Sync doesn't have a ver. that runs in Fedora.

I have no idea about DDS/DAT tapes, but I imagine it's feasible as long as they can be mounted.

You can ask the FreeFileSync developer Zenju - they're very approachable. No Fedora build as far as I can see, but you can build it yourself from source code.

Just use tar (and mt).
Quick search found this for you to have a read of.

Doesn't Ubuntu have a program called Backup that is basically the old deja-dup? Pretty sure I tried it and you can configure the locations. Maybe not.

Guess you could make a cron job that performed that single directory backup on almost any schedule. Tar has been the workhorse of files forever. Can use tar with compression too.

All of those mention are pretty good backup programs. I've used LuckyBackup in the past and it is fairly straight forward to use. It should be in the repositories!