MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Thu Mar 17, 2022 2:11 pm**

Hi,
The Snapshot and Live USB Maker features of Annex are excellent.
However, is it possible to miss out the unwanted 'man-in-the-middle' USB live boot process to restore directly from a snapshot ISO when needing to recover ?

It could avoid the need to create the live boot usb from the ISO, then boot it to launch the desktop Installer icon, then unnecessarily go through all of the installation process again, just to get back to the original installed snapshot on the original partition.

I tried restoring a snapshot ISO to the original partition using 'Restore Partition Image' in gnome-disk-utility, but it failed to boot after.
I also had a look at the Installer desktop launcher, but that runs a minstall-launcher script which I wouldn't dare mess with.
But if minstall-launcher can install the live system to hdd, then presumably it should be even easier to install from a saved snapshot ISO.
So is there a 'Recover from Snapshot' script available ?
Either way, 'Recover from Snapshot' might be a handy option to add to the Snapshot gui !

Posted: **Thu Mar 17, 2022 2:20 pm**

Electroguard wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 2:11 pm Hi,
The Snapshot and Live USB Maker features of Annex are excellent.
However, is it possible to miss out the unwanted 'man-in-the-middle' USB live boot process to restore directly from a snapshot ISO when needing to recover ?

It could avoid the need to create the live boot usb from the ISO, then boot it to launch the desktop Installer icon, then unnecessarily go through all of the installation process again, just to get back to the original installed snapshot on the original partition.

I tried restoring a snapshot ISO to the original partition using 'Restore Partition Image' in gnome-disk-utility, but it failed to boot after.
I also had a look at the Installer desktop launcher, but that runs a minstall-launcher script which I wouldn't dare mess with.
But if minstall-launcher can install the live system to hdd, then presumably it should be even easier to install from a saved snapshot ISO.
So is there a 'Recover from Snapshot' script available ?
Either way, 'Recover from Snapshot' might be a handy option to add to the Snapshot gui !

I think you could boot from snapshot ISO by adding such a "boot from ISO" boot menu entry to grub.
At least that would avoid "flashing" the snapshot iso onto an USB-key first. There are quite a lot of such posts about fromiso booting with MX Linux ISO's. Easiest to have it on extra partiton, so when booted you can re-install onto the partition for /root/home etc. If enough RAM available and Snapshot -ISO is not to big, you can boot with "toram" and "eject" the ISO afterwards, which would allow to install onto the same partition the ISO was located.
HTH

Posted: **Thu Mar 17, 2022 2:58 pm**

Thanks fehlix, but I'm afraid your knowledge and experience goes far beyond my modest capabilities, which is basically click it or copy and paste.
My snapshot iso is on another partition, but the same ssd multi-boots ubuntu and windows and MX21 and has data and swap partitions... so if I go poking in the dark directly at grub I am sure I will regret it.

Knowing how user-friendly MX is, I half-expected such an obviously feature as Restore from Snapshot would already have been easily available somehow - but as it isn't, I'll just do it without risk by using the long-winded live boot Installer method as usual.

Was worth mentioning though, cos the better something like MX gets, the harder it gets to improve... and Restore from Snapshot could offer a relatively simple but useful improvement.

MX Linux Forum

Restore directly from Snapshot ISO

Restore directly from Snapshot ISO

Re: Restore directly from Snapshot ISO

Re: Restore directly from Snapshot ISO