[SOLVED] What is the absolutely most simple backup software that will work with Xubuntu 15.04?

Gregg Bell · 05-20-2015, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jean-Luc Besson

Hey Gregg,

I use deja-dup / Duplicity for years. It never failed. I used it with Ubuntu, Debian and Arch. It always worked like a charm. Try it, it's stable.

Thanks Jean-Luc. I was looking for it (deja-dup) in Mint 17.1. The Mint 17.1 had Duplicity installed by default but I didn't know how to use it and oddly, I thought, I couldn't get deja-dup in either the software center or synaptic. I love the big green button with the arrow on it. It looks beyond simple. Any suggestions on getting it in the Mint 17.1?

Gregg Bell · 05-20-2015, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beachboy2

Gregg,

+1 for grsync

Howto:

Click on green cross for new backup.

Give it a title such as:

gregg_backup_19052015

Source drive (drive #1):

/home/gregg

Dest'n drive (drive #2):

/media/seconddrive

Click on gearwheels.

I tried it. I really liked it. Powerful. Fast. Simple. I wasn't sure what it was doing. Like I didn't understand why "Verbose" was checked and what it meant, but I could discern that when it backed up something to a blank destination it backed it up fully. And then when I made changes in the source file it would only back up the changes.

Gregg Bell · 05-20-2015, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maples

By "backup" I assume that you mean "I have a folder /folder/to/backup/ and want to copy every file in it to /backup/folder/"

In that case, rsync (or grsync) is probably your best option.
Assuming that you're only backing up your own files, the rsync command that you'd want is probably

Code:

rsync -rv /folder/to/backup/ /backup/folder/ --delete

I've never used rsync, but from looking at screenshots you want to make sure that "Delete on destination" is checked. Additionally, make sure that recursion is enabled (if there's a "disable recursion" option, don't check it). You also probably want to check "Preserve times".

Once you find the set of options that works for you, it looks like there's a "sessions" menu that you can add your custom settings to, so you only have to click that instead of checking every option every time.

Hope this helps!

Thanks maples. I'm still a little nervous about using the command line but I tried grsync and liked it a lot.

michaelk · 05-20-2015, 03:52 PM

How may bytes of data are you actually wanting to backup? The simplest backup method to an external drive that may not always be connected would be using the file browser and just drag and drop.

Gregg Bell · 05-20-2015, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

How may bytes of data are you actually wanting to backup? The simplest backup method to an external drive that may not always be connected would be using the file browser and just drag and drop.

Thanks. Think I've got too much though. (For me anyway.) 11 GB. And I tried that. When you add to the destination it adds just the additional files but it doesn't add any of the internal changes to the files.