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Although this magnificent program has already been discussed in this blog, we must not fail to comment on one of the possibilities that it has as an accessory functionality to Linux maintenance packages: that of creating a exact image of our PC so that if necessary it is possible to restore it to a previous state. |
Who, coming from the world of Microsoft, has not missed something like a restore point in Linux? Who, after a while of using Linux (if not frequently cleaning tasks of useless configuration files, packages, etc. have been carried out), does not have the impression that their system is "dirty" and decides to resume the task to format and reinstall frequently used programs? Or, even simpler still: who has not regretted installing something or an application does not work as desired and would like to have their machine as it was before the "unfortunate experience". If only there was a restore point like in Windows ...
This is something that Linux has been missing more than once. Although, it must also be said that Windows restore points do not leave the system exactly as it was before the installation of an application. We can easily see this by editing the Windows registry and seeing that, after restoring to a previous state, there are references in the registry of files that corresponded to those of the installation from which it is intended to eliminate any residue.
This same blog recently published a reference to the Guix package manager which contains this functionality (creating restore points).
Even so, the possibility of using clonezilla seems really attractive since it would not be necessary to remove components individually, it would return the computer to the state of the image that was created, and this would imply not having to reconfigure sizes, themes, etc.
This blog also includes a video tutorial on using Clonezilla, so we won't repeat its instructions here. Personally, I use an external hard drive connected via USB for this purpose and select the "disk to image" option (and image to disk for restoration), choosing the "Beginner" option when the cloning program offers a user level selection, as this meets my needs.
Finally, Gofris is worth mentioning . Thanks to this program, very useful for those who own an internet café or experiment a lot with their computer, programs will forget the changes made to the system once you restart. Both file modifications and configurations will disappear upon restarting the computer. Once the "freeze" function is applied, you can then make changes to your machine, test potentially dangerous software, and perform any other maneuvers you want, since upon restarting the system everything will be as it was before "freezing" it.
Video source: Guillermo Vélez