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

[DukeComposed]

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

This is false, and makes no logical sense. Programming skills are not necessary here. You need to know the difference between a file and a directory, and between a file system and a mountpoint, and you already do, so you really do have the knowledge to tackle this. I believe in you.

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

This is false and explained in the introduction of the document. You can do this.

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

A number of disk usage analysis tools have been mentioned in this thread: du and QDirStat for instance, with examples, by myself and others. I think you need to sit down and find, and document, what your file systems look like so you can start to understand where you've put your data. To quote that introduction I mentioned: "It's simply not efficient for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves." You have the tools you need to solve this at your disposal. No programming needed, just a little bit of elbow grease.

[CharlesV]

The largest file in my home folder is the iso snapshot I made under /Templates

I tried to put it onto an external drive but then the snapshot creation always aborted.

And I always put my /home folder on a separate partition.

OK, so 334GB in *** TEMPLATES *** and you put your iso snapshot there ? Delete it! Or move it off to a Removable Drive if you want to save it... but that is not a good place to store it!

Note: Templates is NOT excluded with any of the check boxes NOR in the default snapshot exclude list. So that folder is a big problem in you current state / config

[monamtb]

Hello to all helping me out here
I wanted to give a big thank you to everybody who was assisting me in finding my way through that jungle.

I think I understand a bit more about what to use each program for now.

I went with the strategy of making a clean install - took me more than a week to get everything to work the way it did on my old laptop.

I will create regular Backups with Lucky Backup - and else I will make a snapshot of my system without home to avoid setting up my base system again - like I had to do now and not have any additional GB load to create that snapshot.

I think that makes most sense for me going about this way with all things I have learned from all of you so far.

I had never tried cloning a hard disk and as long as the strategy I decided for now works, I intent to keep it that way.

Again, big heart felt thanks to all who gave their best to help me out and helped me to finally decide which concept I want to use from now on in terms of Back up and Snapshots.

[monamtb]

The largest file in my home folder is the iso snapshot I made under /Templates

I tried to put it onto an external drive but then the snapshot creation always aborted.

And I always put my /home folder on a separate partition.

OK, so 334GB in *** TEMPLATES *** and you put your iso snapshot there ? Delete it! Or move it off to a Removable Drive if you want to save it... but that is not a good place to store it!

Note: Templates is NOT excluded with any of the check boxes NOR in the default snapshot exclude list. So that folder is a big problem in you current state / config

Hello Charles,

I created another snapshot of the new system - and when I tried to install it a similar incident happened - I couldn't get past 170 GB for /root - while I believed all folders of /home excluded.

Learning about the templates folder from you and qdirstat I double checked my home folder again - and I put quite some data in the /public folder - which showed up using quite an amount on the snapshot doing the same thing as before - creating a large snapshot with a lot of /root GB space needed.

So, I guess the public folder is also not included by the "remove home folder files" - which kind of doesn't make sense to me!

Why aren't all home folder files and directories included by default when I check the box "Exclude /home folder directories (files)" whenc I put this checkmark on MX Snapshot?
That would have prevented from my problems being created in the first place!!
Maybe another checkbox can be implemented saying "Exclude complete /home folder content"???

The new snapshot with /home/public excluded now made my /root section come down to 19 GB during install - so my /home/public folder and my /home/templates folder where the culprits!!!

Again - a big thank you to everybody who helped me along figuring out what was wrong with mi idea of snapshots - correct snapshot procedure - and correct backup strategy.

[DukeComposed]

I put quite some data in the /public folder - which showed up using quite an amount on the snapshot doing the same thing as before
So, I guess the public folder is also not included by the "remove home folder files" - which kind of doesn't make sense to me!

Be very clear here when you answer: Did you put the data under /public, or did you put the data under /home/monamtb/Public? Because you know those are two different locations and only one of them is under /home.

[fehlix]

So, I guess the public folder is also not included by the "remove home folder files" - which kind of doesn't make sense to me!

Maybe you did not read properly what was stated on the screen:

snapshot-exclude-all-marked-en.jpg

When you click "All of the above", only those items are excluded as shown nothing else.
Or maybe it is a translation issue, e.g here in German:

snapshot-exclude-all-marked-de.jpg

The shown text makes it very clear, to manually exclude any other directory or file(s) manually,
by hitting the "Edit Exclusion File" button to edit the exclusion list file.

Why aren't all home folder files and directories included by default when I check the box "Exclude /home folder directories (files)" whenc I put this checkmark on MX Snapshot?
That would have prevented from my problems being created in the first place!!

In case you don't understand what's on the screen clearly stated, maybe ask in the forum if something is unclear
or the translation makes no sense, which may happen.
E.g German translation for "Desktop" (which means the~/Desktop folder)
is shown on the screen as "Benutzeroberfläche", which is rather confusion,
b/c the Desktop folder is translated as "Schreibtisch" at least in "German locale for Germany" (=de_DE) maybe different in Austria or other German dialects.

Maybe another checkbox can be implemented saying "Exclude complete /home folder content"???

The exclusion list is really simple to understand. Also there may always be some folders or other files the user want to keep or exclude.

[atomick]

Best thought to action per "Excluding 'LARGE FILES' "
on 2nd page of Snapshot menu to create - look at the bottom. Select Resetting accounts (for Distribution to Others). this excludes most all primary all /home/userAccount dirs.
flash this using the "Live USB Maker" . Flash your created S/S-image and it can run the same as your Vanilla .iso
process is much all the same to install so username hostname time question /user -name/passwd / root /passwd all the same the continue and finish all the same.

Also if to be detailed and cover for all question. Same Page in the middle left of this option screen is "Edit Exclusion File" This is the complete list Snapshot knows what NOT
to include or negated into the snapshot result .iso file. This is a text file found /etc/mx-snapshot-exclude.list > This can be now edited by sudo nano mx-snapshot-exclude.list or
vi/vim this same file vi mx-snapshot-exclude.list cursor all down and back up and view carefully to current syntax and format to entries and how set. Smart thing to do is.
sudo cp mx-snapshot-exclude.list mx-snapshot.exclude.list.org (always create a backup when touching anything in /etc/ dir first. )

eg: I add in this to exclude Virtualbox from this keeping my VBox.guest images out of the snapshot. cursor down too: #Entries below can be edited by you the user I add
home/*/VBoxVMs
home/*/.cache/* < there already is an entry this is the way to remove its content of no use per snapshot.
- follow this format if you have say .bin created for your own personal files in /home/me-acct/.bin add this then
home/*/.bin/* - keep to this syntax and run your snapshot and check size. In common terms selecting Resetting accounts - size should end up around 3.4-4gig pretty much
- all your installed apps will be added nice feature results of this size compared to the original vanilla mx-23.xyz.iso file you originally downloaded.
Hope this helps all as a direct yet an eye full but copy and practice. there are features to either. Consider as well - on the 1st page. if you have a 2nd partition or full 2nd hard drive
set the entry SnapShot Location .. default shows /home/snapshot click in this box and change it too /myBigdrive/backups or an archive dir. just the 1st name. Snapshot will
auto-magically create the snapshot directory for your image to dump out too when all done using /tmp as the temp workbench creating the snapshot. hence
/myBigdrive/backups/snapshot will result when its all done. If you do have a 2nd SSD or HD or even mounted ext-usb-device with an External SSD and MX sees this then point the snapshot to that mounted drive eg: /mybigdrive/backups all the same. just examples how too.

[monamtb]

Hello Duke,

I put it in my /home/public folder - since I stay away from messing around with anything else than my /home directory.

I put quite some data in the /public folder - which showed up using quite an amount on the snapshot doing the same thing as before
So, I guess the public folder is also not included by the "remove home folder files" - which kind of doesn't make sense to me!

Be very clear here when you answer: Did you put the data under /public, or did you put the data under /home/monamtb/Public? Because you know those are two different locations and only one of them is under /home.