My philosophy is "anything I can't reproduce easily". This will vary depending on the machine and data. But it's been a good guide so far.
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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I generally backup the entire home folder and the configuration files.
Data and configurations.
If you have the space, software is nice because it's easier to get the system going again, but the data (your files - music, documents, pictures) and system configuration files (/etc for example) are the most critical. If you have databases set up, learn about their dump commands and add that.
You don't have to use the same method for everything. My pictures are backed up to another side in a second computer and to Amazon Glacier for $2/month (I'll have to pay to download them if I ever need it, but I'll gladly pay if I'm in that situation - those should only be needed if I have a major house fire or something like that). My weekly backups are my /home directories, /etc, /root, a database dump, and maybe one or two other important things.
Really configuration is best not backed up but created from some source of truth like a Git repo. But a backup can serve as a poor-man's version control.
If you want to be able to restore the machine completely, with everything installed and configured, then yes you have to backup everything. There's generally two ways, file-level backup where you'd use something like rsync, tar, etc. and block-level where you'd backup the whole partition/disk using something like dd, clonezilla, etc. The latter is the easiest to restore but it's a bit of a pain to backup because the system generally has to be offline, booted from alternative OS. The forner is a bit more difficult to restore but not by much, and it's so easier to backup. You can do it while the system is live. I'd probably try that first. Find documentation on backing up a complete root filesystem with rsync/tar and you're good to go. Some ideas. It's typically a single command which can be run on a schedule.
The built-in GUI backup tool is generally intended for your own user data. In order to be able to backup other things it'll have to run as root or be given caps and that might get more complicated than using straight rsync/tar.
What I am always wondering, to set up Linux until everything runs without problem, it takes quite some time for me. I use Linux for about a year regularly, and had to set it up about 4-5 times. And it almost always is a pain and I need to search online for some time until everything works. Is it getting easier the more often it's done? Or do you create a setup script that runs everything if you reinstall the system?