GUI backup tools (was Re: Destroying "only" your home directory)

[Michael T. Richter]

On Wed, 2006-05-04 at 15:49 +0200, Mario Vukelic wrote:

> Somehow it seems this discussion just continues and continues without
> getting anywhere because people ignore what is being said. I gave you
> this link days ago, which exactly addresses the issue:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HomeUserBackup


I already addressed the wholly inadequate nature of that "solution" a
few days ago.  Here's the executive summary:
1.  It sucks.  ;)

OK, seriously, here's the real summary:
1.  It doesn't seem to be specced out with anything like
full/differential/incremental/et al backups.
2.  It seems to require a whole lot of user intervention for what should
be mostly automated.
3.  It doesn't seem to have browsing the backups for restoration so that
users don't have to fumble around with potentially dozens of disks to
find the right version of their files.  (Ideally the browser should
integrate with Nautilus so that you can seamlessly browse your backups
and pick just the version you want -- which would imply keeping track of
disks, file versions and a whole lot of other sophisticated operations.)
4.  It doesn't seem to support anything resembling system backups (or at
the very least system configuration backups).  While the former isn't
absolutely necessary, the latter pretty much is.

In short, it's a typical geek's view of what an end-user wants.  This
despite the proliferation of sophisticated, end user-oriented backup
applications that could be looked at as a model.


> Nobody from the Ubuntu team denied that it would be awesome, in fact
> they think it is so important that a solution is being coded for Dapper.


A wholly inadequate "solution" that isn't much better than what
currently exists.


> Why is this thread than still continuing as if all this hadn't happened?
> I don't try to be a prick, it's a serious question.


Perhaps because people--myself included--don't think this "solution" is
even acceptable, not to mention good?

What's particularly annoying is that there are some very strong backup
"back-ends" out there that I can see.  But they're absolutely not suited
to end-users in the slightest.  A decent GUI written for unsophisticated
end-users with good "wizards" to get through the most common settings
issues would really be all that's needed to make them suitable for
end-users as well.  Instead we get what appears to be a brain-dead
wrapper around tar/gzip/mkisofs.

--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter at gmail.com, mtr1966 at hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter at hotmail.com, mtr1966 at hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966 at jabber.cn

"I have never seen the poor people being so familiar with their heads of
state as they were with [Michele Duvalier]. It was a beautiful lesson
for me. I've learned something from it." --Mother Theresa
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