What is Digg?109 Comments
- nreynolds, on 01/20/2008, -3/+48I just memorize every single binary-digit stored on my hard drive so hard drive failure is never a problem for me.
- simX, on 01/20/2008, -10/+50Anyone who thinks that Time Machine is a simple "backup utility" is completely missing the point of Time Machine. And it looks like FlyBack is guilty of this. There are two essential ingredients to Time Machine that make it stand apart from everything else.
First, Time Machine literally has one-click setup. Does FlyBack ask you if you want to start backing up your computer when you connect an external drive? And does it automatically start backing up *without any configuration* as soon as you agree to use the drive you just connected? Time Machine makes backing up easy precisely because of this, which is entirely the point: get backups into the hands of normal users. Does FlyBack do this?
Second, it's *all* about contextuality. FlyBack is completely oblivious to this part of Time Machine. When you enter Time Machine, you see your window *exactly as you normally see it in that app*. If you're trying to restore a file from the Finder, *you see a Finder window in the restoration interface*. If you're trying to restore a contact, you see the *Address Book window* in the restoration interface. If you're trying to rescue an e-mail, you see your *Mail application window* in the restoration interface. If you're rescuing photos, you see your *photo application window* in the restoration interface.
The point is to keep the user in a familiar place when restoring files, so they immediately know where and how to find the items they want to restore. FlyBack obviously doesn't do this -- it shows the backups as listings of files, just like any other backup utility. FlyBack has been done numerous times before -- it's called Retrospect, or Apple's own utility called "Backup", or SuperDuper!, or Carbon Copy Cloner (to name the backup utilities I know on the Mac). There's a difference between Time Machine and a backup utility; FlyBack obviously falls under the latter category. - PhonicUK, on 01/20/2008, -0/+19New-to-linux Ubuntu users who don't (knowingly) use repos, don't have RAID arrays and want to be able to easily look back at the previous version of any file without having to remember to manually back it up.
- Xraven92, on 01/20/2008, -2/+20pssht....backing up data is for squares
- cmdrNacho, on 01/20/2008, -0/+17Another good project is Timevault
Ubuntus wiki
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault
Launchpad, info and Beta code
https://launchpad.net/timevault - Karmavs, on 01/20/2008, -7/+24not using a separate hard drive entirely completely defeats the point of a back utility.
- SSUK, on 01/20/2008, -2/+18Face it, everyone steals from each other... Apple, MS stole the GUI from Xerox, Apple stole the multiple desktop feature from Linux, Linux takes a lot of atheistical features from MS/Apple OSes, MS stole the whole permissions setup from a Linux distro to use in Vista... It's just swings and roundabouts.
- stainsby, on 01/20/2008, -1/+16 I think you'll find there is more to life than code and word processing, even on a computer. There's this thing called "multimedia" for a start ..
Also, RAID controllers are not infallible, and besides that most people don't use them, particularly on notebooks. If you are relying on RAID for backups, then you are foolish. RAID cannot undo human errors. I do use RAID 1, but I also use backuppc on important data, even for data on on RAID 1. - mezoko, on 01/20/2008, -1/+16Dugg for using Linux instead of Ubuntu in the title
- GothAlice, on 01/20/2008, -1/+16A hardlink-based backup system for Linux has existed for years and years. Have a gander at Faubackup:
http://faubackup.sf.net - skywake, on 01/20/2008, -3/+15(Linux || OSX || Vista) > Blank HDD
- srg13, on 01/20/2008, -0/+11The default window switcher animation (in Ubuntu anyway) is very similar to the spaces transition with the grid and the arrows (next to 'Make yourself at home' - http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spaces.html )... But the cube is there if you want it, and I use it because it looks (in my opinion anyway) much sleeker and classy (with the right settings). But that's the power of choice.
And it's people like you that normal Mac users hate, because you give them a bad name... - eelco, on 01/20/2008, -2/+12Workspaces?
- andrewlevy, on 01/20/2008, -1/+11An entire filesystem based on this concept has been available for years (for Linux):
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Ext3cow_Versioning_File ... - dinostabOMG, on 01/20/2008, -1/+11I'll give it a shot. Does anyone know if it's already in an Ubuntu repository?
- Ashex, on 01/20/2008, -0/+10Don't need sudo to run that
- jrbrewin, on 01/20/2008, -0/+10does it?
so, allowing the rollback / restoration of an accidentally deleted / modified, or corrupted file wouldn't be useful to anyone? Backups are there to prevent more than hardware failur you know. - frontporsche, on 01/20/2008, -0/+9The technique of using rsync to backup directory trees and creating hard links where files haven't changed since the last backup has been around for quite a while in Linux. ...longer than Time Machine.
FlyBack appears to be a nice gui wrapper around this technique. I'm not sure, though, how the value added by FlyBack can be compared to Time Machine. - jman583, on 01/20/2008, -14/+23The "Get Mac fanboys the shut the ***** up" niche.
- solidus636, on 01/20/2008, -2/+11No.
- cmdrNacho, on 01/20/2008, -0/+9cause making a utility to make back-ups is really copying some amazing innovative idea. /sarcasm
- Skitals, on 01/20/2008, -5/+13Those installation instructions are exactly why this is NOTHING like Time Machine. Here are the Time Machine instructions:
Conntect a drive to your computer. Click yes or no if you want it to be your backup volume
...
Profit? - Rapax, on 01/20/2008, -1/+8You only got half the process right. Here's how it actually works:
1) Hey look at this new tool that AppleSoft came up with. It's pretty neat. We could use something like that.
2) Ok, I now have a free tool that does exactly what the proprietary one does.
3) Now that that is working, how could we improve it?
4) Superior software. - lispy, on 01/20/2008, -0/+7They make it better? And they can take it away from you anyway. OpenSource is not a company. It's much more.
- Flummoxer, on 01/20/2008, -1/+8Actually, normal Mac users don't give a crap about what the others are saying.
- muszek, on 01/20/2008, -0/+7sudo apt-cache search flyback
the answer is "no". - Tippis, on 01/20/2008, -3/+9"Configurability is a strength not a weakness"
And, likewise, ease of use is a strength, not a weakness. Having a one-click startup procedure is *essential* to getting every-day people to use it. As it happens, Time Machine *is* very configurable, if you want it to - but to just get it going, it only requires clicking "ok". - dbr_onix, on 01/20/2008, -3/+9RAID isn't a backup, it's redundancy. Running "rm -rf *" on a RAID'd drive doesn't stop it destroying all the data.
All RAID does is either speed up disc-access, or mean one drive dying interrupt stop data access.
Really, RAID is a silly idea for anything but where you need to capture multiple streams of video (or video from high-end cameras), or it's running a server where you cannot afford to take it offline to swap a drive.
Running rsync to a secondary drive once a day, or per-hour is a much better idea for most users. That way, you're not going to decrease the life of the drive as much, you run less risk of both drives dying at the same time, if you accidently delete a file, you can recover it from the external drive.
RAID1 (mirroring) is *not* backup. You still need to backup a RAID1 drive to either another drive, a tape-system, discs or such... RAID5 is really unnecessary unless you are dealing with *huge* files (Like bigger than a single drive), or with very high bandwidth data-capture/use (Over 300MB/s or something) - UNL1M1T3D, on 01/20/2008, -0/+6You seem very emotional yourself.
- Darkhacker, on 01/20/2008, -1/+6I don't use a hard drive. I just keep a bunch of Asians locked up in my basement.
(yeah, I'm going to hell for that) - Darkhacker, on 01/20/2008, -4/+9Linux is free software and FlyBack is free as well, where as Time Machine is proprietary. Plus FlyBack actually has a sane UI and doesn't rely on flashy gimmicks like Time Machine's stupid 3D effect with the space picture and the descending Finder windows.
- jrbrewin, on 01/20/2008, -2/+7you know, it's not always bad to buy in to proprietry software.
- Cupantae, on 01/20/2008, -1/+6Apple invented backups?
- HouD, on 01/20/2008, -0/+5Linux doesn't believe in God?
- hyperair, on 01/20/2008, -0/+5Eh wasn't there another one? TimeVault? I'm still using that.
- Darkhacker, on 01/20/2008, -0/+5You could say that with just about everything. "zomg! joo st0l3 fr0m th3m!!!" What's wrong with using ideas if they are good? And what do you mean by "coming up with something ourselves"? What would you have come up with? I doubt you could come up with something that's truly innovative and that I couldn't find reference to something similar being done before. Plus, maybe this implementation will be better than the alternatives? Most innovation is evolutionary, not revolutionary. I'd hate to have you work in a patent office. You'd probably approve a patent for a machine that can move on four wheels and anyone who makes an automobile that has four wheels is "stealing their idea".
- Darkhacker, on 01/20/2008, -0/+4Well, it uses rsync so the backups are incremental. As for creating your own delta (diff) files, it's possible with rdiff, but I don't know if that's integrated in FlyBack or not.
- pingpongboss, on 01/20/2008, -5/+9Go look at Compiz Fusion and stfu.
- zang74, on 01/20/2008, -1/+5For the record, Linux stole multiple desktops from Amiga, and Apple stole multiple desktops from Linux.
- MrSarcasm, on 01/20/2008, -1/+5yeah but... does it do diffs and all?
- Intensity, on 01/20/2008, -4/+8....yeah, except in this case it makes more sense to say Linux = OSX .
- Cupantae, on 01/20/2008, -1/+4I think you must have replied to the wrong comment. He didn't say "GIMP is superior to Photoshop" or "open source software is invariably better than proprietary software".
- seaners, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3hmm i don't think it will, this linux one looks pretty boring :(
- andywebb95, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3You do know that you don't have to use it.
- dbr_onix, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3It's less flexible, you can (easily) restore specific files from a specific time. rather you revert the whole system back to a specific time, then I think you can restore files, but it's a pain.
- 89vision, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3Oh yeah, I compile my own c code by hand.
- Colindean, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3Applications have to be specially written with Time Machine's API in order to take advantage of it. It is quite unlikely that any single Linux application would have this kind of API prepared. It would need to be an open backup standard, similar to DBUS in nature (but obviously not in purpose).
Perhaps someone wants to get working on that? - mCanada, on 01/20/2008, -1/+4see "average users"
- blackjack75, on 01/20/2008, -1/+4I find the way to setup backup times absolutely fantastic. I mean it's like.. you're typing directly the values to set in the cronjob! Oh wait.. you are.
I can easily understand that "*/2" means backup every two hours, the average user can't. I am not against having advanced features but they should not be the first thing the user sees. Apple's talent is the ability to a make things look simple, even though they use the same technology inside. You just pick the disk, click start and that's it.
Just compare the blog's description of FlyBack with this:
http://media.arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-1 ... - burrgrinder, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2"I can see that getting dangerous with you confusing your Email with your backed-up Email. Personally I'd want to be damn sure I'm working on a backup and not my live data."
They already though of that. You have to run the Time Machine application first (which is separate from the System Config Time Machine panel), then "whatever application" window appears in a "time machine desktop" where your background changes to the Time Machine animated stars, the date of the current backup status and you have the timeline slider on the screen and you see multiple versions of the program hiding behind the current one. If you confuse a Time Machine backup area for current, live data, you'd make even the dumbest computer users laugh at you. -
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