Timeshift system backup problem

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Hey! I’m using Fedora 38 (with BTRFS file system of course) and I’m trying to use Timeshift for system backup. But whenever I select my partition for system backup, it says “Select BTRFS system disk with root subvolume (@)”. What does it even mean? How do I change my partition’s name from /home to @home or something?


Read the comments at the bottom of the setup wizard. Timeshift apparently only supports backing up the system partition. So you would likely have to get into changing your BTRFS layout to accommodate. So instead of the ‘flat’ setup Fedora defaults to you would need root volumes on all of your partitions you want to backup, and the desired subvolume would be a child of the top level volume. Please carefully read the BTRFS docs before going this route. It’s not too complex but errors can happen.

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Timeshift is Ubuntu based. You have to rename the “root” subvolume to “@”
in order to make snapshots with timeshift. This is possible, but with risk to get an unbootable system. Procedure would include creating a rw snapshot of “root” named “@”, adapting /etc/fstab, grub.cfg and may be initramfs, but sorry, I did it but do not have the steps at hand.

Note that btrfs timeshift is no backup, because it’s on the same disk, it’s use is reverting to the last good OS if you mess up the system.

Is there any other tool like Timeshift which will work with a default Fedora installation?

There seems to be snapper but I do not know it.

Added: just installed from the Fedora repos. It’s a command line program which needs some study, I think.

freak