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Alternatives to tar for archiving Linux system? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/datahoarder@lemmy.ml
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Whenever I wipe my PC, I use tar to make an archive of the whole system. This works, but having to decompress the whole archive to pull files out is very annoying. Is there another archive format that:

  • Preserves permissions (i.e., is Unix-y)
  • Supports strong compression (I use either zstd or xz depending on how long I can be bothered to wait)
  • Supports pulling out individual files quickly

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[–] 1 point 3 years ago

I use bupstash.io

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    [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    d

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    [–] 0 points 3 years ago

    Maybe Borg is a possibility. However, I have not yet backed up an entire system with it, but only certain files.

    • The file permissions have always been correct when restoring files in my case.
    • Which compression (LZ4, zlib, LZMA or zstd) and which compression level is used can be specified when creating a backup.
    • Backups can be mounted via FUSE, so that you can restore individual files with an file manager or a terminal emulator, for example.
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    [–] 0 points 3 years ago

    At least on the Mac (bsdtar) you can extract single files out of a tar file.

    E.g.,

    Create the tar file:

    tar cvzf pseudo.tgz pseudo/

    Move to another directory

    cd /tmp/tt

    Extract a single file:

    tar -xf ../pseudo.tgz pseudo/10481_2017.1069.png

    You say PC, so might want to check the tar version you are using and see if there are extra parameters to do the file extraction.

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