Mistakes in GUI backup, please fix

[Governor]

In the GUI backup procedure, there are two serious mistakes:
It is a serious mistake in the GUI to NOT inform the user that a compressed backup cannot be booted from.
It is an error, which causes users to reject Puppy. Developers need to take this type of error seriously.
What does the user do next? They delete Puppy and move on to another distro, never to be heard from again.

Pupsave Backup-Compress.png (174.08 KiB) Viewed 171 times

The second serious mistake is while the user can name the backup file whatever they like, there is no mention that the backup file must conform to a specific naming convention,
where the first part of the name (including the hyphen), must not be changed, ie. dpupbw64save-BKP.2024.06.21-13.42

Therefore, the user should not be allowed to change the first part of the filename in the dialog box. And this information should appear to the user along with the warning about compressed backups mentioned above.
Cheers!

[geo_c]

In the GUI backup procedure, there are two serious mistakes:
It is a serious mistake in the GUI to NOT inform the user that a compressed backup cannot be booted from.

Yes, a zipped archive must be unzipped first before trying to use it of course.
In your past computing experience have you ever used other zipped files or file systems without unzipping or extracting them first? Why would this zipped archive be any different? It's a zipped backup.

The second serious mistake is while the user can name the backup file whatever they like, there is no mention that the backup file must conform to a specific naming convention,
where the first part of the name (including the hyphen), must not be changed, ie. dpupbw64save-BKP.2024.06.21-13.42

See this post:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 25#p140525

Therefore, the user should not be allowed to change the first part of the filename in the dialog box. And this information should appear to the user along with the warning about compressed backups mentioned above.
Cheers!

When a filesystem is zipped it can be named anything the user wants, so the savefile naming procedure would be something only applicable to bootable saves and addressed in the intitial save routine, which it is (as I have demonstrated,) and it would be confusing to state that the zipped backup must use a certain naming convention that is in fact not at all a requirement for a zipped backup. When running pupsave-backup it's assumed on their first save that a user RTFM in the first save routine, or else he would not have been able to make a backup to begin with. But of course, you are asking to try and completely eliminate user carelessness. Not gonna happen IMHO.

I think that in my 10 or 12 years using puppy you are the first person to have serious misunderstandings in this area. But you can search this forum and the old murga forum archive and find that maybe I'm wrong about that.

[Governor]

In the GUI backup procedure, there are two serious mistakes:
It is a serious mistake in the GUI to NOT inform the user that a compressed backup cannot be booted from.

Yes, a zipped archive must be unzipped first before trying to use it of course.
In your past computing experience have you ever used other zipped files or file systems without unzipping or extracting them first? Why would this zipped archive be any different? It's a zipped backup.

The second serious mistake is while the user can name the backup file whatever they like, there is no mention that the backup file must conform to a specific naming convention,
where the first part of the name (including the hyphen), must not be changed, ie. dpupbw64save-BKP.2024.06.21-13.42

See this post:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 25#p140525

Therefore, the user should not be allowed to change the first part of the filename in the dialog box. And this information should appear to the user along with the warning about compressed backups mentioned above.
Cheers!

When a filesystem is zipped it can be named anything the user wants, so that naming procedure would be something only applicable to bootable saves and addressed in the save routine, which it is (as I have demonstrated,) and it would be confusing to state that the zipped backup must use a certain naming convention that is in fact not at all a requirement for a zipped backup. When running pupsave-backup it's assumed on the first save that a user RTFM in the first save routine, or else he would not have been able to make a backup to begin with. But of course, you are asking to try and completely eliminate user carelessness. Not gonna happen IMHO.

I think that in my 10 or 12 years using puppy you are the first person to have serious misunderstandings in this area. But you can search this forum and the old murga forum archive and find that maybe I'm wrong about that.

Nothing you say changes the facts as I presented them. Everything I said is true. As I pointed out, these are 2 mistakes in the GUI. If Puppy is to be more than just a hobby OS for core users, user friendliness (and common sense) is needed. Doubling down on not being user-friendly is ridiculous.

[geo_c]

Nothing you say changes the facts as I presented them. Everything I said is true. As I pointed out, these are 2 mistakes in the GUI. If Puppy is to be more than just a hobby OS for core users, user friendliness (and common sense) is needed. Doubling down on not being user-friendly is ridiculous.

I think what we have going on here is a reading comprehension problem, or you are simply not taking the necessary time and effort to understand what is being said.

What you have said is NOT true. Not at all.

1) A zipped backup doesn't require any sort of naming convention, because it's zipped and it can't be booted into it (because it's zipped). When it is unzipped it requires the same naming convention that the original folder or file required. There is nothing suggesting otherwise in these gui's.

2) It's not the job of a sub-routine to explain all of how basic file operations work, I mean things like zipping, copying, pasting, drive mounting, etc. That just makes for extraneous and confusing information.

3) It's not a bug, it's not a mistake, it's a misreading on your part.

[darksun]

@Governor your post made me think and create this post here how I manage my OS backups and restores. Maybe it is an alternative way can be useful to somebody.

[geo_c]

Doubling down on not being user-friendly is ridiculous.

It appears that there is a piece of computing that you don't seem to grasp. Mainly, to use portable operating systems, portable applications, external drive booting, backup routines, restore routines, and file syncing applications, it is quite literally impossible for a user to engage in any of these activities without thinking through their own logic, and the logic of the necessary basic operations like booting, syncing, zipping, unzipping, drive mounting etc,

No user friendly gui is going to change that. There are a zillion ways to for any user to mishandle the operations. Portable linux is never going to be "user friendly" in that regard.

Instead, it should WORK, and work well for people who take the time to understand what it's designed to do.

You saying it's a mistake over and over doesn't make it so.

By now you should know how to use it properly. I didn't search for anymore posts with a similar issue as you have, so I am at a loss as to your persistent request..

Once you realized you couldn't boot a zipped backup, did ever you attempt to unzip it? I just did it today to test your assertions, and using the Xfe file manager included in Bookworm, I simply right clicked on the zipped backup file and extracted it to a folder named exactly what pupsave backup named it (which xfe shows as option) and booted into it. I didn't have to rename it or anything.

It works GREAT!