Arch + btrfs + timeshift

Jay,

First off got to thank you for your Arch tutorials. Thanks to your latest video (and a couple of the older ones) I was able to do my first ever successful installation. then re-install, then re-install and re-install.

There is one (main) thing that is still kicking my @ss though, it is the btrfs + Timeshift thing
After partitioning I modified your tutorial a bit and ran mkfs.btrfs /dev/sdb2 for my second partition
Then my home partition I did as you did in ext4, though it is a separate HD in my case
After mounting the second partition I did btrfs subvolume create /mnt/sdb2
Then I continued on pretty much as you did, went on to the desktop environments video and installed KDE

The system runs great
Installed btrfs-progs
Installed yay (another video of yours)
Installed timeshift & backintime and that’s where I get into trouble
I guess my subvolume etiquette wasn’t sufficient as Timeshift tells me that my “selected snapshot device is not a system disk” and “Select btrfs system disk with root subvolume (@)”

I’ve gone hunting the web and all the articles I can find seem to be using the rsync option and glazing over btrfs. Except for one that is very complex, lots of subvolumes and compressions, mounting and unmounting mixed in with a bunch of other things like virtualization and ssh. I tried running just the parts that I though applied, but got stuck half-way-through. I don’t think it is possible to run his playbook once the system is live.

I pretty much resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to do another complete re-install since I view backing up as being about the most important task for a computer to do. This time I really want to get it right.

Yours or your forum goers help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
GB

You want something simpler and pre-configured, try Garuda Linux. It is much simpler. I been using it for 4 days already. And It works pretty well.

Links below.
Garuda Linux Download page

1 Like

+1 on this.

Garuda is quite bloated as a distro, but I don’t mind removing what I don’t need. What I really, really love about Garuda, though, is that the base OS with amd or nvidia graphics cards, and vulkan, and lutris/proton, all work out of the box. This combined with the configuration of brtfs and grub-brtfs are all pre-configured, saved a lot of time for me not going to have to learn every configuration detail about how brtfs, snapshots, and grub all work together.

I don’t need to know all of the details, I just need it to work. And, for me, Garuda works great.