Pietro Battiston

Questa pagina è in sola lettura. Puoi visualizzare il sorgente, ma non puoi modificarlo. Contatta l'amministratore se pensi che ci sia un errore.
**I still haven't found the perfect backup solution for a Linux desktop. This page reports my findings.**

**Update: deja-dup is still not the perfect backup solution, but it is close. At least, I can tell my relatives to use it, though in case of needed restore they might need my help.**

But first, a list of my requirements, since yours may differ:

   * graphical interface, since my non-hacker relatives must be able to use it easily ((Though I've been pointed at cron-based solutions as the ones providing less hassle for unexpert users, I do not share this view since unexperted users may be perfectly able to plug in a USB hard disk and pretend that //at that time// a backup occurs, and they can unplug the USB hard disk at the end.)) preferably gtk-based
   * ability to backup through smb
   * ability to browse backups and restore single files
   * possibility to include/exclude single folders/file types/path patterns

I consider the following as nice bonuses:
   * scheduling
   * profiles to allow for different schedules and/ or chosen directories/files

I admit it: I'm just looking for something like Apple Time Machine, OK?

Here are the evaluations I made (in green and red, positive and negative aspects that I consider particularly relevant in the comparison):

|     ^ [[http://backintime.le-web.org|backintime]] ^ [[http://code.google.com/p/flyback|flyback]] ^ [[https://launchpad.net/deja-dup|deja-dup]] ^ [[http://sourceforge.net/projects/sbackup|simple backup]] ^ [[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault|timevault]] ^ [[http://www.diffingo.com/oss/fwbackups/|fwbackup]] ^ [[http://projects.sucs.org/projects/pybackpack/wiki/ScreenShots|pybackpack]] ^
^ GUI | nice | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">very nice</span></html> | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">very nice</span></html> | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">no GUI while backupping (so no errors reported!). All preferences are lost if the user clicks "use recommended backup settings"!</span></html> | ? | nice (judging from screenshots) | nice, but bad at reporting errors or providing debug info to the user |
^ shows progress during backup | only file currently copied | only time elapsed (and that may be an intrinsec limitation of being based on git) | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">yes</span></html> | no (how could it without GUI?) | ? | ? | Quite poorly, but yes |
^ exclusions handling | takes apparently any regular expression - though the GUI is not very clear on that | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">few preset exclude options (impossible to exclude a single subfolder)</span></html> | Can exclude paths, not regexp ((Through regexp can be manually added with gconf-editor, for instance.)) ([[https://bugs.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+bug/374274|Bug report]]) | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">free choice of inclusions and exclusions</span></html> | ? | only provides a list (presumably of single folders/files) | nice interface to include/exclude folders, but patterns/extensions only through manual tweaking of config files |
^ can browse backupped files | ? | yes, but only a list of files is provided (not organized in folders)! | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">no!!!</span></html> | yes, but each incremental backup only shows files backupped at that time | ? | ? | No - though the last backup is simply a mirror image, so easy to browse/use |
^ can restore a single file | ? | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">yes</span></html> | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">Restoring previous versions of files/directories is easy with the Nautilus menu action</span></html>, restoring lost files has to be done using the shell ((Or creating a dummy file with the same name and then asking to restore a previous version)) | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">yes (though the operation is not very fast if the file is part of a large backup)</span></html> | ? | ? | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">no!!! the only available operation is "restore the whole backup"!</span></html> | 
^ backup targets | only filesystem | only //external// filesystems | filesystem, smb? | filesystem, ssh, ftp | ? | filesystem, ssh, maybe others | filesystem, ssh |
^ speed | ? | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">very slow</span></html> | good | very good | ? | probably depends on "engine" used | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">very slow</span></html> |
^ space occupied | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">much (no compression)?</span></html> | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">optimal (no replication, gzipped and for non-binary files, only updates are recorded)</span></html> | good (no replication, gzipped) | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">optimal (no replication, gzipped and for non-binary files, only updates are recorded)</span></html> | ? | probably depends on "engine" used, but maybe there is no attention to replication? | much for the first backup (no compression), then diffs are gzipped, so pretty good |
^ other pros |   | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">can show differences between versions of (non-binary) files</span></html> | <html><span style="background:#00FF00;">nice notifications mechanism</span></html> |  | ? |  |  |
^ other cons |   | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">Doesn't keep track of emtpy folders and folders/files permissions, doesn't allow deleting old backups. Not available in Debian repositories, neither as a tarball! Available only as a (low quality) .deb</span></html> |  | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">(at least by default), only runnable by root</span></html> By default, simply skips files bigger than 10 MB.   If at some time "standard settings" button is clicked, all settings are lost. <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">Unmaintained, deprecated.</span></html>([[http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=493840#36|Debian bug]]) | <html><span style="background:#FF0000;">doesn't work with python 2.6! Last commit (as of April 2010) was in 2007!</span></html> |  | Doesn't catch even common errors such as "low space". |

Other apps I may want to look at: [[http://hanez.org/zynk.html|zink]], [[http://www.opbyte.it/grsync|grsync]], [[http://www.areca-backup.org|areca]], nssbackup (?), hubackup (?).

Contributions and suggestions will be appreciated: me [AT] pietrobattiston [GUESS WHAT... DOT!] it