Anders Johansson wrote:
Out of interest (because I have no experience with Mac), could you explain what Time Machine does that is different from a normal backup program - not counting the 3D GUI for restoring backups, which is pretty nice looking but not necessary for functionality
Never used time machine, but your comment about a GUI not being necessary for restoring files is akin to saying there's no need for user's to have a 'desktop' on computers -- they can just use a console. Any idiot knows that's complete crap. The interface on something is what can make or break something all other things being equal. If you have a cumbersome awkward or difficult to use interface, it won't get used or be usable. If you have one that makes it a breeze, it opens up **new paradigms** in usage. Can you imagine doing video processing if we still had an interface of punched cards? Sure, a Video screen is nice, but punched cards would let you do it all. As for "3D" -- I wasn't aware the MAC supported NVIDIA's 3-D goggles nor that it's time-machine required them. Though an appearance of 3D for browsing files (a file hierarchy is usually displayed as some type of tree -- a 2D diagram), then having the appearance of 3 dimensions could be useful for browsing forward or backward in time. I have complete backups on linux using the standard 'xfsdump' utils and a modified tower of hanoi dump schedule, BUT browsing those backups, or pulling files out randomly, or being able to see all the versions of a file...that would be nice. I even let Windows-Backup have extra space, so it can keep copies of the files it will keep copies of (but it won't keep copies of anything on my linux box, as it is 'remote')....But for the files it does, I can see multiple copies in the file props...which is nice for single files, but unusable for backup sets. So **PLEASE** don't thing that a good GUI can't be a make-or-break deal. So much in this life is about ***perceptions*** -- not facts. Most engineers don't get this, which is there is the stereotype of engineers being socially clueless.
Normal backup programs are plentiful on linux though, so if you just need a backup, they are available
Not any good ones with a GUI that are also 'fast', and that backup all the ACL's, extended attrs, etc. of modern file systems. 'star' (a tar like prog) has good backup functionality (supports ACLS's XATTRS, all the 'tar' versions, compression, but it's command line only. xfsdump could be alot better if it kept full file inventories ... but backup progs that are "plentiful", that support modern file system semantics? Not my experience. Linda -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org