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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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OS Backup - what should and what should not be backup'd? (lemmy.kde.social)

submitted 6 days ago by tubbadu@lemmy.kde.social to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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Hello there! Here's the thing: I got some old HDD for my Debian home server, and now that I have plenty of disk space I want to keep a backup of the OS, so that if something accidentally breaks (either SW or HW) I can quickly fix it.

now the question is: which directory should I include and which should I exclude from the backup? I use docker a lot, is there any docker-specific directory that I should back up?

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[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Why? I have a hard time imagine a use case where restoring the OS itself would be appropriate.

I can imagine restoring data, obviously, and services running with their personalization ... but the OS is something generic that should be discarded at whim IMHO. You probably chance few basic configuration of some services and most likely that's stored in /etc but even then 99% is default.

You can identify what you modified via shell history, e.g. history | grep /etc and potentially save them or you can also use find /etc -type f -newerXY with a date later than the OS installation and you should find what you modified. That's probably just a few files.

If you do back up anything beyond /home (which should be on another partition or even disk than the OS anyway) you'll most likely save garbage like /dev that might actually hinder your ability to restore.

So... sure, image the OS if you actually have a good reason for it but unless you work on archiving and restoring legacy hardware for a museum then I doubt you do need that.