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Here's the 17th topic in the Helping new users series

Thanks
wizard

********************************Draft220302 ************************

This topic assumes you are using one of the recommended distros or remasters.

When you are customizing your system, experimenting, installing new programs, you should Backup First.

Since Puppy stores your changes in the save folder, it is the folder that needs to be backed up.

First Backup of a Save Folder
- click Menu>Utility>Pupsave Backup

Write down the directory shown in Save backup to mnt??. Be sure your drive has the free space shown in MB required.
Note the Backup folder name.
--click Backup
--click No, DO NOT compress the first backup
--click OK
--open Rox file manager
--press the / key, a Goto box will open at the bottom of Rox
--backspace over any text in the box
--type in the Save backup to /mnt/?? you wrote down
--press Enter
You will now see your Save Folder and the new backup.
--right click the backup folder
--choose Rename
In the example below we are going to rename:
fossapup64save.BKP-2022.03.02-10.24 to fossapup64save.bak

Now when you reboot you will see a "personal file" choice menu that list
your normal save folder and your .bak folder that can be selected if needed.

CAUTION- Pupsave Backup creates another new dated folder each time it runs, these can take lots of drive space, be sure your drive has enough (you can store backup files on other drives).

If you do additional backups and you want them to show in the "personal file" choice menu, you will need to rename them too. The .bak can be changed to suit.

If you compress a backup it will have to be extracted, renamed and placed in the directory with the other save folders before it can be used.

Need more help? Join the forum and post your questions in Beginners Help.

@wizard :-

I'm assuming it would be too confusing to mention that, for more experienced users, this can be just as easily achieved by a simple copy/paste operation?

Or is it just that users have come to expect that something like performing backups should require the use of a "special" utility.....and that this just "seems" more professional?

(I think in almost 8 years with Puppy, I've never, EVER used the 'backup' utility.....in part, due to reading a post somewhere on the Murga Forum in the early days to the effect that this was, in fact, all that was necessary.)

Maybe I'm just an "ornery cuss"..!!

Mike.

@mikewalsh

Maybe I'm just an "ornery cuss"..!!

Yes you are LOL..

Actually this topic is really about creating an easy way to recover if something goes bad.

Worst case, you try something or install something that corrupts the save file/folder and/or Puppy won't boot. You have no other computer, no other bootable media and your bootloader has no "pfix=ram" entry and even if does you don't know how to use it.

The "personal file" choice menu you activated with this topic gets you back running with just a key press.

Thanks
wizard

As for me, I don't know precisely what the save-file contains.
I infer (because when I boot with PFix=RAM I must 're-stuff' the setup & internet connection menus) that this config info is included in the pup-save file.
I imagine I read somewhere that the spot /home/spot/downloads files is included.

I'm sure the info is available "somewhere" - I would guess on the Wiki > categories > save-file page (if it exists).

Cobaka

Re: Helping new users-Backing Up A Save Folder

Hi cobaka:

Your recent forum comment got me wondering:

I imagine I read somewhere that the spot /home/spot/downloads files is included.
I'm sure the info is available "somewhere" ....

I decided to look in my own fossapup64 save file both while running a
different version of Puppy on the same PC (and again within my fossapup64 save file
while still running fossapup64, not a recommended technique, I realize !)

I left clicked on my fossapup64 save file, Puppy's ROXfiler opened it in a
new window:

And, sure enough, my own /home/spot/downloads was in my savefile and had a file
that I had recently downloaded with Chromium.

(As Barry intended, looking at my /usr and /lib folders within my save file, I saw few
files. But I did notice files of packages of programs I had installed after my first boot.)

After this snooping within my fossapup64 save file, I left clicked on its name with ROXfiler
to unmount my save file.

This experiment helped me to have a better understanding of Puppy Linux's layered file system.

Yes, the "SAVE" files-folders is how all of one changes are saved as we progress in the use of a particular PUP we boot and use. It SAVES all of our sessions use such that on reboot we have all of those things we incorporate from the prior time be booted the PUP.

I call this ability 'persistence'; as all the things we do, persist constantly, so that we dont lose stuff from boot to boot.

The ability that @wizard brings via awareness in this thread is a safety factor for the persistence that is built into Puppy Linux design. And has great benefit if we are both aware of it and can use it in a fashion to protect us from both inadvertent use as well as hardware failures that could/would corrupt the save-session file-folder.

Enjoy