MX Snapshot tool usage for migrating my system to a new laptop - snapshot or backup tool??

[monamtb]

If I try to insert the log file content here it gets rejected because it is too long - also when I insert it as code it gets rejected the same way.

How can I get the log file into the conversation for you to check???

[monamtb]

All of my data is stored on home.

That is all I know because whatever I do I save it in my home folder.

I tried to exclude all my home data using the checkbox in the MX snapshot utility - just as it was recommended.

[DukeComposed]

If I try to insert the log file content here it gets rejected because it is too long - also when I insert it as code it gets rejected the same way.

I'll refer you to How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: Volume is not precision: "This end is not served by simply dumping huge volumes of code or data into a help request."

You know enough about the problem at this point to be able to read the log file yourself and identify key components that are relevant to your situation. You know there's been questions raised about what you're excluding in the snapshot, and about what is being included. Take this as a starter and look at the log file and see what looks related to that and we'll go from there.

[juwido]

I think the hidden .files in the home folder are not excluded, as they are needed for the settings of the snapshoted programs...

[DukeComposed]

I think the hidden .files in the home folder are not excluded, as they are needed for the settings of the snapshoted programs...

Don't speculate. Your system has disk usage utilities installed. Check for Disk Usage Analyzer in the menu, or try to run "baobab" from a command line. If that's not there, you can install QDirStat ("apt install qdirstat") and run that. You always have the "du" command you can run against a directory. "du -sh /home/user/.config" for example will tell you how large the ~/.config directory is. Mine is 680 MB.

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$ du -sh ~/.config
680M  /home/user/.config

OK, why is my ~/.config 680 megs? I can keep drilling down into this.

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$ du -s ~/.config/* | sort -rn | head
626200  /home/user/.config/emacs
63391   /home/user/.config/Tracktion
3944    /home/user/.config/libreoffice
1022    /home/user/.config/balena-etcher
[snip]

OK, so it's mostly Emacs's fault. Makes sense. Graphical tools can do the same thing interactively. Use them.

[monamtb]

If I try to insert the log file content here it gets rejected because it is too long - also when I insert it as code it gets rejected the same way.

I'll refer you to How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: Volume is not precision: "This end is not served by simply dumping huge volumes of code or data into a help request."

You know enough about the problem at this point to be able to read the log file yourself and identify key components that are relevant to your situation. You know there's been questions raised about what you're excluding in the snapshot, and about what is being included. Take this as a starter and look at the log file and see what looks related to that and we'll go from there.

If I could solve that myself I wouldn't ask it here in the forum - and no - I cannot identify key components since I have no programming skills - or otherwise I would know why the /root and / files are so large although I excluded all files from my /home directory as recommended here.

The "Smart Way" you referred me to sounds like for programmers - not for someone unskilled like me.

If you ask me to get the first 100 lines that I can do - but since I have no idea what could be relevant I might just leave out a piece of info that could be important since I don't understand most of the lines in a .log file output.

The du command gives me that output:

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monamtb@mxlinuxmona:~
$ du -sh ~/.config
1.2G    /home/monamtb/.config

I copy the beginning of the log file here - yet the output doesn't make sense for me since I only have a 65 GB /root and I can't understand for the world why it wants 270 something GB and why some 64 GB are excluded - and instead of 27 GB it wants 270 GB:

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2024-09-17 12:19:14.530 DBG: mx-snapshot version: 24.9.03
2024-09-17 12:19:14.557 DBG: grep -oP '(?<=DISTRIB_ID=).*' /etc/lsb-release
2024-09-17 12:19:14.564 DBG: cut -f1 -d'_' /etc/mx-version
2024-09-17 12:19:14.570 DBG: grep -oP '(?<=DISTRIB_CODENAME=).*' /etc/lsb-release
2024-09-17 12:19:14.577 DBG: /usr/share/mx-snapshot/scripts/snapshot-bootparameter.sh | tr '
' ' '
2024-09-17 12:19:14.619 DBG: +++ QString Settings::getFilename() const +++
2024-09-17 12:19:14.619 DBG: +++ void Settings::selectKernel() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:14.666 DBG: +++ void MainWindow::setup() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:14.675 DBG: +++ void MainWindow::loadSettings() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:14.675 DBG: +++ void MainWindow::listFreeSpace() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:14.676 DBG: - Free space on /home, where snapshot folder is placed: 254.36GiB 

2024-09-17 12:19:14.676 DBG: The free space should be sufficient to hold the compressed data from / and /home

      If necessary, you can create more available space
      by removing previous snapshots and saved copies:
      0 snapshots are taking up 0MiB of disk space.

2024-09-17 12:19:33.009 DBG: +++ void MainWindow::listFreeSpace() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:33.009 DBG: - Free space on /media/monamtb/ISOSTAR/snapshot, where snapshot folder is placed: 835.42GiB 

2024-09-17 12:19:33.010 DBG: The free space should be sufficient to hold the compressed data from / and /home

      If necessary, you can create more available space
      by removing previous snapshots and saved copies:
      0 snapshots are taking up 0MiB of disk space.

2024-09-17 12:19:43.173 DBG: +++ void MainWindow::listFreeSpace() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:43.174 DBG: - Free space on /media/monamtb/ISOSTAR, where snapshot folder is placed: 835.42GiB 

2024-09-17 12:19:43.174 DBG: The free space should be sufficient to hold the compressed data from / and /home

      If necessary, you can create more available space
      by removing previous snapshots and saved copies:
      0 snapshots are taking up 0MiB of disk space.

2024-09-17 12:19:47.587 DBG: +++ void Settings::selectKernel() +++
2024-09-17 12:19:47.608 DBG: glxinfo | grep -q NVIDIA
2024-09-17 12:20:20.185 DBG: grep ^CONFIG_SQUASHFS_LZ4=y /boot/config-6.1.0-25-rt-amd64
2024-09-17 12:20:23.871 DBG: +++ bool Settings::checkSnapshotDir() const +++
2024-09-17 12:20:23.871 DBG: mkdir -p "/media/monamtb/ISOSTAR/snapshot"
2024-09-17 12:20:29.580 DBG: chown $(logname): "/media/monamtb/ISOSTAR/snapshot"
2024-09-17 12:20:29.608 DBG: +++ bool Settings::checkTempDir() +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.608 DBG: +++ static bool Settings::isOnSupportedPart(const QString&) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.608 DBG: Detected partition: "ext4" Supported part: true
2024-09-17 12:20:29.608 DBG: +++ static QString Settings::largerFreeSpace(const QString&, const QString&, const QString&) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.608 DBG: +++ static QString Settings::largerFreeSpace(const QString&, const QString&) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.609 DBG: +++ static QString Settings::largerFreeSpace(const QString&, const QString&) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.609 DBG: Work directory is placed in "/media/monamtb/ISOSTAR/snapshot"
2024-09-17 12:20:29.609 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeDesktop(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.609 DBG: runuser monamtb -c "xdg-user-dir DESKTOP" 2>/dev/null
2024-09-17 12:20:29.642 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeDocuments(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.642 DBG: runuser monamtb -c "xdg-user-dir DOCUMENTS" 2>/dev/null
2024-09-17 12:20:29.676 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeDownloads(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.676 DBG: runuser monamtb -c "xdg-user-dir DOWNLOAD" 2>/dev/null
2024-09-17 12:20:29.709 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeFlatpaks(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.709 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeMusic(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.709 DBG: runuser monamtb -c "xdg-user-dir MUSIC" 2>/dev/null
2024-09-17 12:20:29.744 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeNetworks(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.744 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludePictures(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.744 DBG: runuser monamtb -c "xdg-user-dir PICTURES" 2>/dev/null
2024-09-17 12:20:29.778 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeSteam(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.778 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeVideos(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.778 DBG: runuser monamtb -c "xdg-user-dir VIDEOS" 2>/dev/null
2024-09-17 12:20:29.812 DBG: +++ void Settings::excludeVirtualBox(bool) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.812 DBG: +++ void Settings::otherExclusions() +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.816 DBG: +++ void Work::setupEnv() +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.816 DBG: mountpoint /boot
2024-09-17 12:20:29.825 DBG: /boot is not a mountpoint

2024-09-17 12:20:29.825 DBG: +++ static bool Work::checkInstalled(const QString&) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:29.825 DBG: dpkg-query -W -f='${Status}' mx-installer | grep 'install ok installed'
2024-09-17 12:20:29.895 DBG: installed-to-live -b /.bind-root start bind=/home live-files version-file adjtime read-only
2024-09-17 12:20:31.251 DBG: Calculating total size of excluded files...
2024-09-17 12:20:31.252 DBG: du -sxc {/.bind-root/lost+found,/.bind-root/tmp,/.bind-root/dev/,/.bind-root/media/,/.bind-root/mnt/,/.bind-root/sys/,/.bind-root/proc/,/.bind-root/run/,/.bind-root/boot/grub/,/.bind-root/etc/bcm-ckd,/.bind-root/etc/defaultdomain,/.bind-root/etc/crypttab,/.bind-root/etc/ioctl.save,/.bind-root/etc/live/protect,/.bind-root/etc/machine-id,/.bind-root/etc/mailname,/.bind-root/etc/resolv.conf,/.bind-root/var/cache/apt/archives/partial/,/.bind-root/var/cache/apt-xapian-index/index.*,/.bind-root/var/cache/debconf/*-old,/.bind-root/var/lib/apt/lists/,/.bind-root/var/lib/apt/periodic/,/.bind-root/var/lib/dbus/machine-id,/.bind-root/var/lib/dhcp/,/.bind-root/var/lib/dpkg/*-old,/.bind-root/var/lib/NetworkManager/,/.bind-root/var/lib/sudo/,/.bind-root/var/lib/urandom/,/.bind-root/var/log/,/.bind-root/var/log/samba/,/.bind-root/var/mail/,/.bind-root/var/spool/mail/,/.bind-root/var/spool/anacron/,/.bind-root/var/tmp/,/.bind-root/var/cache/brightness-settings-cache/,/.bind-root/var/lib/flatpak/,/.bind-root/var/lib/flatpak/.*,/.bind-root/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/} 2>/dev/null |tail -1 |cut -f1
2024-09-17 12:20:31.368 DBG: 651940

2024-09-17 12:20:31.368 DBG: Calculating size of root...
2024-09-17 12:20:31.368 DBG: du -sx /.bind-root 2>/dev/null |tail -1 |cut -f1
2024-09-17 12:20:35.663 DBG: 52876992

2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: SIZE 52876992
2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: SIZE ROOT     52876992
2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: SIZE EXCLUDES 651940
2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: COMPRESSION   52
2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: SIZE NEEDED   27157027
2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: SIZE FREE     875999512 

2024-09-17 12:20:35.664 DBG: +++ void Work::checkNoSpaceAndExit(quint64, quint64, const QString&) +++
2024-09-17 12:20:35.665 DBG: Needed space: 27157027
2024-09-17 12:20:35.665 DBG: Free space  : 875999512 on "/media/monamtb/ISOSTAR/snapshot"
2024-09-17 12:20:35.665 DBG: Copying the new-iso filesystem...
2024-09-17 12:20:35.665 DBG: tar xf /usr/lib/iso-template/iso-template.tar.gz
2024-09-17 12:20:35.962 DBG: cp /usr/lib/iso-template/template-initrd.gz iso-template/antiX/initrd.gz
2024-09-17 12:20:35.971 DBG: cp /boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-25-rt-amd64 iso-template/antiX/vmlinuz
2024-09-17 12:20:35.988 DBG: +++ void Work::replaceMenuStrings() +++

[CharlesV]

I am going to suggest to install qdirstat and run that. It will show you where all the data is and you can snap a picture and show that if you need too.

I agree with felix that it sounds like something in home was not excluded. But understanding where / what is taking space will help isolate this.

[fehlix]

I copy the beginning of the log file here

Pls. provide the whole log-file as compressed zip file. FWIW, QSI-tool -> select mx-snapshot.log
and perhaps keep Quick System Info selected and click on the “Save” button at the bottom left
to get save a zip-file
Also any specific reason why you have manually installed a real-time kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-25-rt-amd64
To attached the zip file select attach file within the full post editor and navigate to the save-folder (maybe the home folder),
you may need to change a file-filter from "*.odt" to "All Files" to allow selecting the zip file.

[monamtb]

Hello Fehlix and Charles V,

I wasn't aware that I used a special kernel - I never did anything like that since I don't know how to do it anyway - I just installed MX 23.3 - that was it.

The screenshots are not shown when I use the P to post the images and I don't know how to include them using the image button from the menu - I don't get to choose the folder they are located in on my laptop

[fehlix]

I wasn't aware that I used a special kernel - I never did anything like that since I don't know how to do it anyway - I just installed MX 23.3 - that was it.

Maybe somone else is using your computer? Where did you got the MX-iso from and what filename was it exactly?
None of MX release iso, do ship with a realtime-kernel, at least non I'm aware of.

The png images that spectacle made are not shown when I use the P to post the images and I don't know how to include them using the image button from the menu - I don't get to choose the folder they are located in on my laptop

Do you see within qdirstat, where your big files are stored? And did you exclude those?
Thanks for the QSI. I thought you wanted to send the snapshot.log also?