Creating Snapshot Backups Of Your Desktop With Timevault On Ubuntu 7.10

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>

This document describes how to set up, configure and use Timevault on Ubuntu 7.10. The resulting system provides a powerful backup system for desktop usage. TimeVault is a simple front-end for making snapshots of a set of directories. Snapshots are a copy of a directory structure or file at a certain point in time. Restore functionality is integrated into Nautilus - previous versions of a file or directory that has a snapshot can be accessed by examining the properties and selecting the 'Previous Versions' tab.

This howto is a practical guide without any warranty - it doesn't cover the theoretical backgrounds. There are many ways to set up such a system - this is the way I chose.

1 Preparation

Set up a standard Ubuntu 7.10 system and update it.

2 Install Timevault

Open https://launchpad.net/timevault/+download within your browser and install the latest package (when I was writing this howto the latest version was 0.7.5-1) with the GDebi package installer (simply click on the package).